


Inverted

by theisraelproject107



Series: Mirror Mirror [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, Slightly violent, sequel to Shattered prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:58:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4882954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theisraelproject107/pseuds/theisraelproject107
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While everything turned out fine for Riku and Sora, the consequences of the events of Shattered come around to bite Roxas on the ass, instead. Three-chaptered sequel to 'Shattered', for AkuRokuRiSo Month.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Pairing: AkuRoku
> 
> Words: 6,734
> 
> Rating: M

Roxas was sitting in a corner of a student common at Wise University trying to study, rolling a pen slowly between his fingers, gaze tracking back and forth across the pages of a textbook, when two long hands descended over his eyes and the world went dark.

“Guess _who?”_ a voice sang softly into his ear.

“Hi, Lea,” Roxas sighed, a wry grin spreading despite himself. The guy slid his hands to the sides and tilted Roxas’ head back to look up into his eyes.

“Did you know because you’re psychic, or because you know me so perfectly?”

“Definitely because I’m psychic,” Roxas assured him. “We’d have been here all day guessing if I wasn’t.”

Lea narrowed his sharp green eyes, leaning down and humming a suspicious, _“Hmmm.”_ He didn’t stop until his nose bumped Roxas’ forehead, the two males eye to eye, Roxas’ vision filled with nothing but green. “How about now? What do you see, looking _deep_ into my eyes?”

Roxas went quiet, then, after a stretching pause, said in a faint voice, “I see – I see you… and me…” He felt Lea’s fingers twitch slightly on the sides of his face. “…failing our next quiz because you kept the pair of us from studying with stupid questions…”

With a snort, Lea straightened, flicking the tip of Roxas’ nose. _“Wow._ All that ability, and you use it for evil.”

Smirking, Roxas’ eyes followed the lanky redhead as he grabbed the chair beside him and swung it around, sitting heavily and balancing his chin on its back. “Didn’t you know?” Roxas innocently asked. “I’m the _evil_ twin.”

“Mm. I know one thing for sure.” Lea shoved his chair nearer to the blond, his face hovering teasingly near to Roxas’. “You’re definitely,” he muttered, “a demon in the sack.”

Roxas laughed softly as Lea started peppering kisses against the side of his neck. _“Hey.”_ He did his best to push the guy away. “We’re in public, dumbass. These people deserve better than your horn-dog behaviour.”

“Let ‘em watch,” Lea suggested, stretching to try and reach him with Roxas’ staying hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be the biggest thrill of their bookish lives.” He then grinned, white teeth gleaming. _“Or,_ you could come back to my room for a while, and study later…?”

Roxas wavered, tempted despite his better intentions. He darted a quick glance around at the other students, valiantly studying with the time afforded to them. That… should definitely be him. _And_ Lea.

Meeting the redhead’s gaze, he proposed, “Only if you agree on a revision session afterwards.”

Lea gave a faint roll of the eyes, but nodded his willingness. Roxas squinted at him, measuring his sincerity, then, feeling a familiar excitement starting to rise in his belly, decided, _Fuck it,_ and started packing his things away.

Lea slinging an arm around his shoulders as they stood, they left the common room and headed out into the afternoon light. Roxas inhaled a deep breath of autumn air, looking over at the guy who had been his boyfriend for going on two weeks now, after a rather prolonged and impassioned pursuit by Lea over the past three months since they’d met in an economics elective. If pressed, he couldn’t have said for sure what caused him to finally get together with Lea – but his change of heart probably had something to do with his brother hooking up with a guy over in Hollow Bastion. _The_ guy, no less, from his visions, the very ones that Roxas had been drawling from the start were probably just part of a series of hormone dreams.

But getting the call from Sora and hearing that it had all come to pass, that the guy from the dreams was _real,_ and that now they were an item, no less… had kind of got Roxas thinking. Sora had sounded so damn _happy,_ and really, when he searched himself, he knew he had someone like that in his life, too.

And so, the relationship had begun, much to Lea’s unending delight, which he insisted on expressing as physically as he could at every given opportunity. Not that Roxas was complaining – he hadn’t actually been with anyone as good as Lea in bed before.

So it was that, exchanging playful banter, Lea’s fingers tickling at his earlobe and the side of his neck, accompanied by occasional, inflammatory growls of what he intended to do to Roxas once he got him alone, that they made their eager way across campus. They headed up to Lea’s room, locked the door so his room-mate couldn’t interrupt, and stripped each other off before toppling into bed. The next hour was spent between the sheets, kissing, grunting, thrusting, gasping. Lea never failed to satisfy; by the end, Roxas was a study in perspiration-slicked, hazy-eyed, loose-limbed bliss.

Breathing raggedly, they exchanged a long look, then a grin, then a kiss, Lea rising up on one elbow to lean over Roxas, tongues moving slowly. When they eventually parted, Roxas licked his slightly swollen lips, his smile lazy, Lea’s filled with glowing affection, like it might burst out of him at any minute. “I like you,” Lea murmured, nudging their noses together. “A lot.”

Roxas shifted a little, getting more comfortable, lifting a hand to idly pinch the redhead’s chin. Tugging him down into another brief meeting of lips, Roxas replied, “I like you back.”

Lea lowered his head to the pillow beside Roxas’ head and mumbled, “About damn time.”

Chuckling, Roxas reached around and started massaging the back of Lea’s neck, the guy sighing beside his ear, relaxing at the caressing touch. Roxas’ fingertips strayed up into his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp, Lea’s body growing heavier and heavier on top of him… until, all at once, Roxas realised his boyfriend had fallen asleep.

Lea’s weight was comforting, a nice, solid presence, and a warm one now that the sweat was cooling on their skin. Still, Roxas needed to shift him and use the bathroom. He slithered out carefully from under the man, who rolled over without stirring. Smiling faintly, Roxas took a moment to study his sleeping features, a slowly growing sense of satisfaction swelling in his chest. He was – glad that he’d got to know Lea. Gladder still that he’d woken up before Lea had lost interest and moved on to chasing someone else. If that had happened… Roxas knew he’d have missed out on a very good thing.

He’d have to pick up the phone and thank Sora one of these days for galvanising him into it.

Picking his jeans and underwear up from the floor, Roxas shuffled into the small bathroom Lea shared with his room-mate and shut the door. After relieving himself, he tugged the clothing onto his lower half, and, yawning, stepped to the mirror to wash his hands and maybe splash his face. Hadn’t he been the one to tell Lea they’d be doing revision later? Ugh. As much as he did _not_ feel like it right now, he knew that in order to keep any sort of balance of power in this relationship – and make sure that Lea couldn’t just whisk him away for sex whenever he felt like it – he’d need to stick to his guns with that one. Once he was done in here, he’d go poke the guy awake, and drag him out of bed if need be.

With a deep breath, he wiped his face and pushed the hair away from his eyes, blinking blearily at his reflection.

That’s when he saw the large, bone-white face staring back, no eyes, no lips, no real features – like a mask, surrounded by darkness.

With a cry, Roxas stumbled back, hitting the bathroom door with a _thump._ He grasped blindly for the handle, as the face in the mirror then spoke with a soulless voice: _“Madame, the brother is located.”_ Tendrils of dark smoke instantly started emerging from the glass, undulating through the air towards Roxas, who had no doubt whatsoever that to touch that darkness would be incredibly bad for his health.

Chest hitching, he rattled the handle, twisted it, started to yank it open, hearing a drowsy, “Roxas?” from the other side of the room, Lea having been awoken by the thump.

 _“LEA! Help me!”_ Roxas managed to frantically call – but before he could wrench the door back, the darkness struck, stabbing into him from behind, slamming him, once again, into the door, which shut with a bang.

 _“Roxas?”_ Lea sounded alarmed, his knocking coming a moment later, followed by an attempt to push the door open. Roxas, however, was held in place against it by an incredible force, so that no amount of kicking or shoving from Lea’s side would shift it. Roxas could _feel_ the darkness moving through his body, ice-cold snakes dragging beneath his skin. His limbs twitched, eyes rolling into his skull, small, fractured  noises escaping his throat that Lea could doubtless hear, his cries of Roxas’ name growing more and more panicked.

When at long last Lea finally did manage to open the door, it happened suddenly, the redhead practically falling to the bathroom floor as it swung wide. “Rox – Roxas!?”

It was a tiny bathroom, with a toilet, a sink, a medicine cabinet with a mirror front, and a rack for a hand towel. There was no space to hide, no windows from which to escape.

And yet, in stark contrast to all logic, all common-sense, all that he knew to be possible in the world…

“Roxas…?”

Lea found the room – empty.

.o.O.o.

Roxas coughed weakly, waking dizzy on the cold, hard floor… but not, he noticed as his eyelids fluttered open, the floor of Lea’s bathroom.

Just as he was trying to wrap his head around this, his memories a fuzzy blur, someone kicked him. Hard. “Wake up!” a strident voice commanded, followed impatiently by, “Get _up,_ you fool.” Another kick hit him, a sharp toe swung into his bare ribs.

Groaning, Roxas rolled away from the assault, clambering with difficulty onto his hands and knees, his entire body trembling and feebly weak. He lifted his head carefully, to both size up and glare at his attacker.

It was – a woman. Tall and slender, she wore a flowing blue dress and black cape, its stiff, white collar rising high, framing an objectively beautiful but currently hard-as-ice face. She regarded Roxas arrogantly, with smouldering contempt. “Must you _stare_ so?” she demanded, voice as cruel as her expression. “On your feet, you _wretch.”_

She watched on disgustedly as Roxas struggled upward, a hand going to his throbbing ribs, which were in far more pain than those couple of kicks should have warranted. He wondered if she had been going at him for a while before he’d woken up. Resentfully, he met her gaze, hunched but defiant. She lifted her chin disdainfully at the display.

“Don’t give me that churlish look, brat. You should know your betters when you see them, and bow your knee accordingly.”

“But you just told me to stand _up,”_ Roxas reminded her, voice dangerously tight and quiet. Whoever she was, she was testing his patience. He glanced about. “Where am I?” He was in – some sort of round, stone-hewn room, tapestries on the walls, a four-post bed covered in furs off to one side. Hung over to one side was a large, ornate mirror, its frame eye-catching but its glass nearly black. The whole place had a dark feel to it – wherever Roxas looked, shadows seemed to swamp his eyesight, giving the world an almost monochromatic gloom.

It sure as shit wasn’t Lea’s bathroom.

“You are in my realm,” the woman coldly told him. “More than that, you need not know.”

 _Realm?_ What was that? Like a kingdom? Another world,  maybe?

“The mirror,” Roxas murmured, eyes narrowing at the woman. “That was you?”

“It was at my bidding,” she sniffed, shoulders squaring haughtily.

 _“Why?”_ Roxas asked, between clenched teeth. “I don’t know you, lady. You’ve got no reason to bring me here.”

Her eyes glinted angrily. “Don’t presume to know _my_ mind, _boy.”_ She moved towards him, steps of sibilant grace, eyes like slits and voice a hiss as she said, “If it couldn’t be that damnable brother of yours, it would be you.”

“My brother?” Roxas was taken completely by surprise, followed swiftly by bewilderment. “Sora? What have you got to do with –” He was cut off, very sharply, by the woman removing a short, jewelled sceptre from within the folds of her cape and striking him across the face with it. Roxas toppled to his knees with a cry, clutching his jaw, before giving by a long, loud moan. He tasted blood. His whole head was vibrating. Holding his face in one hand, he lifted his eyes to her, just in time to see her winding up for the next swing.

Roxas rolled onto his back and out of the way, scrambling towards the bed to try and put something between himself and the insane woman. “I _tried,”_ she ranted fiercely, stalking after him, “to punish the appropriate individual. I set seven _years_ of wicked luck upon that boy, for breaking my mirror. That mirror was my only portal into the world of light! He broke the enchantment, broke the portal, broke my _grasp_ on that foolish mirror-store couple. He broke _everything!”_ She lashed out at Roxas, narrowly missing the back of his head as he threw himself over the bed. “That mirror was without equal! Now I am forced to enchant a _new_ one, which will take another _seven years_ to complete. By that time,” she raged, following Roxas around the bed, “that boy should have been long dead! The curse would have _snuffed out_ his miserable life, for the crime of so much as coming _near_ my mirror.”

She swung with both arms and slammed Roxas on the shoulder as he tried to dart past, the blow sending him spinning, punching his arm out of its socket. He howled in pain, his arm going instantly numb and useless, eyes searching desperately for an exit, but there _wasn’t one._ Why wasn’t there a door? A _window,_ for Christ’s sake! Why – why was this just a _sealed room?_

“But then,” she continued, stomping after him, one hand holding her voluminous skirt, the other wielding the sceptre threateningly, _“your_ _brother_ interfered, and before the curse had even _started_ to properly take effect, he touched that boy’s heart with _light,_ driving the darkness I left within him into a corner where it will _simply sit until it fades away!”_ Expression crazed, she demanded, _“Now tell me, boy, is that justice!?”_

“This has got – _nothing to do with me!”_ Roxas yelled at her, holding his incapacitated arm close to his body. “I didn’t affect your fucking curse!”

“But the one who _did_ is _untouchable,”_ she snarled, advancing upon him. “That brother of yours is simply _drowning_ in light, I couldn’t go near him if I tried, and I certainly couldn’t reach him through some ordinary, everyday mirror.” She levelled the sceptre at him, a wild light in her eyes. “But you, dear – _you_ are not nearly as sunny-bright as _that_ boy, are you? A cynical child like you, full of sarcastic little quips and suspicions about the world – _you_ I could get to. And I tracked you _down._ A price _will_ be paid, and if it can’t be the boy who broke my mirror, or the boy who _rescued_ him, then it shall be _that_ boy’s kin who settles the debt.”

Panting, Roxas shook his head, fear rising into his throat. _No way out, stuck in a room with a crazy woman._ What the hell was he supposed to do? Wrestle the damn stick off her and bludgeon her to death with it?

…Well, if it was going to be between him or her…

Roxas steeled himself, lacking conviction for the idea of _killing_ someone, but needing to defend himself. Perhaps he could just – knock her out until he figured a way out of this. That mirror on the wall probably had something to do with it. He just – had to get the _stick._

He waited until she came at him again, surging forward as she drew her arm back for the swing, trying to snatch the heavy-tipped sceptre out of her hand – but she was quicker on her feet than he expected, darting out of reach and then –

Roxas could only let out a strangled grunt as she slammed the large jewel of the sceptre against his back, knocking the air right out of him and his legs from under him. He sprawled heavily to the floor, knocking his chin so hard against the stone he saw stars. He lay in place, gasping and writhing, his mind screaming at him to get up before she _caved his head in,_ but his body was just – numb. He was _trying,_ but every inch he gained was agony. By the time he managed to turn, it would only be in time to watch as the final strike descended.

Still. If all he could do was face his fate, then… that’s what he’d do.

Turning painstakingly, he pressed himself up to his knees, groaning at the pain. He lifted his head, to stare the bitch down before she killed him, and, God damn her, she was waiting. She wanted to see his eyes as he died. He knew it with one look. _That_ was the type she was: she wanted _suffering;_ she wanted to see the light leave him entirely.

He managed to raise the middle finger of his working hand, breathing hard. “Fuck you, you ugly hag.”

With an enraged shriek, she flew at him, the sceptre raised high. And then… darkness swallowed the world. A strong pair of hands grabbed hold of Roxas, and he felt the most peculiar _tugging_ motion, like he was being dragged at a rapid rate through a black tunnel. He couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t _see,_ could hear nothing but the distant scream of the woman, which seemed to rage hotter and angrier than ever before disappearing completely. Unsure if he’d travelled for minutes or crossed all of space and time in an instant, Roxas found himself suddenly – elsewhere.

The blackness dissolved all at once, leaving him gasping and disorientated, sitting on his ass on the cold floor. He was frozen in shock for a long moment, staring straight ahead at where, just moments ago, there had been a madwoman running at him with a sceptre. In her place, there was – a long corridor, blazingly white in contrast to the darkness he had just been surrounded by, though still with that persistently shadowy appearance, making it look grey, more than anything.

“Jesus, Roxas. That was a little too close,” an all-too-familiar voice drawled dryly from behind him, his head turning slowly, with the highest level of disbelief, to gaze up at what he realised was – somehow – his rescuer.

_“…Lea?”_

The redhead gazed down at him, tugging black leather gloves more securely on, wearing black _everything,_ now that Roxas was noticing, including a long, zipped coat that he’d never seen before. The red hair and the eyes were the same, but – oddly, Roxas noticed that there were two flecks beneath Lea’s eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“Not ‘Lea’,” he answered. “The name’s Axel. Get it memorised.”

Roxas blinked, shaking his head, then wincing at the pain the motion brought. “I don’t – understand,” he said, through his teeth. “You _are_ Lea. Who’s Axel?”

The man sighed, hands on his hips. “Now, that’s just rude. I go and save you from the wicked bitch in the tower, and you try to deny my _existence?”_ Crouching abruptly, so they were eye to eye, he said softly, “You know _me,_ don’t you, Roxas? I mean, you _are_ the evil twin. That means you belong here.” He started to reach a hand out to touch Roxas’ face… but before he could make contact, a sound from somewhere down the long, white passageway made him pause. He turned his head slightly, listening, then grimaced and straightened. “Hey, can you stand? Do you need help?” Roxas tried and failed a little, Lea – no, Axel? – taking hold of his good arm and aiding him to his feet. Pulling the arm over his shoulders, he bent to accommodate Roxas’ shorter stature and said, “Come on. Let’s get you somewhere safe, first of all.”

“Lea –”

“Axel,” he swiftly corrected.

Roxas sent him a sidelong look as they hobbled along. “…Axel, then. Where are we? What – just happened? Is this still that crazy lady’s realm?”

 _“Her_ realm? Yeah, right,” Axel muttered. “She wishes. Why do you think we keep her locked in a tower? That bitch is _nutty._ You’re in Castle Oblivion. I yanked you away from the witch through a dark corridor.”

“Castle… corridor? I don’t – I don’t understand…” Roxas’ voice tapered off, fading sharply towards the end, his steps starting to lag. Axel shot him an alarmed look.

“Hey, hey, hang in there, Roxas! We’re not out of harm’s way _just_ yet.” When it seemed that Roxas was in fact on the verge of passing out, Axel cursed softly, then veered to the side and tested the nearest door. It opened into a simple bedroom, the redhead all but dragging Roxas through, shutting it firmly behind them. Turning, Axel looked around, peering quickly, as if expecting to see someone; but when the coast was clear, he carried Roxas over to the bed and laid him carefully down. “Damn.” He shook his head at the dirt and bruises covering Roxas. “She really did a number on you, huh?”

Roxas’ eyelids fluttered weakly. “You – you saved me, right?” When Axel nodded, he perplexedly asked, _“How?_ What was that darkness? And if you’re Axel, and not Lea, then – who even _are_ you?” Eyes sliding shut, forehead creasing, he complained, “I have… _no_ idea what’s going on.”

Axel huffed a small laugh. “Not too patient, are you?” Glancing around the room, he said, “Look, before we get stuck on explanations, how about I get something to clean you up? You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Roxas mumbled. As he lay there and fought to stay conscious through the great, swimming wooziness he was currently experiencing, Axel went behind a changing screen at the edge of the room, emerging again a minute later with a bowl of water and a white towel tossed casually over one shoulder.

He sat at the edge of the bed and dipped a corner of the towel into the bowl, squeezing it out and using it to dab gently at the smudges of dirt and the smearing blood from where the blow to his shoulder had split the skin. When he went to touch Roxas’ swollen jaw, the blond hissed and flinched away, Axel letting out a low, sympathetic tut. “That looks nasty. She clobbered the hell out of you, didn’t she?”

“It’s more than that,” Roxas grunted, nodding his chin at his shoulder. “I can’t feel my arm.”

With concern, Axel carefully felt the area. “Ouch. Yeah, that’s dislocated. We’re going to need to pop you back in.”

Alarmed, waking up a little at that, Roxas demanded, _“What?_ I don’t think so! Just – take me to a hospital.”

Axel shot him a vaguely amused look, one corner of his mouth twitching upward. “Roxas… I don’t think you want a hospital, somehow.”

“Why not?” the blond asked hotly, freaked at the idea of this – this Lea lookalike wanting to _pop his arm back in._ That was _definitely_ a ‘professional medical intervention’ sort of moment.

Axel brushed a spike of blond from his forehead, Roxas wincing slightly as the man then cupped the side of his face, a thumb dragging down his cheek with a little too much pressure. His expression was – happy, for some reason. “Because, you’re not in your _world_ anymore, Roxas. If I take you to a hospital here, they’ll know right away that you’re from out of town, and you won’t survive ten seconds longer than that moment.”

Roxas stared, wide-eyed, his mouth distended slightly from Axel’s thumb still stroking harder than necessary down his face. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“Silly other,” Axel softly murmured. He leaned down, Roxas drawing away slightly, wary of this guy’s strange attitude. “You’re in the next world over, Roxas – the realm of shadows. This…” He gestured to the room around them – or, more specifically, the dim, patchy gloom that enveloped everything. “…is what exists on the other side of all those mirrors in your world. We are your mirror images.” His eyes glinted. “We are the dark side to everything you’ve ever known.” Roxas held his gaze, unable to look away, a nearly hypnotic exhilaration lighting Axel from within. “And, best of all, you came to me,” the man said, grinning broadly.

“I – I did what?”

Axel sighed, dabbing with the towel at the knot on his jaw. “See, the thing is, everyone’s got an ‘other’, right? You called me… ‘Lea’…” A moment’s resentment seemed to resonate in his tone. “But Lea is the one who exists on the other side of the glass. He’s in the _light_ world, like some kind of golden boy. Me – I exist over here, in the shadow realm, and am easily _ten times_ better than that jackass. Stronger, smarter, sexier, you name it.” His gaze darting between Roxas’ blue eyes, he seemed to be seeking agreement, or approval. When all he got was blank guardedness, he went on. “The thing is, you’re a twin. That means that you don’t _have_ an other in the shadow realm, because you and your other both live in the same world. Which really makes me sore, because that _Lea_ guy gets to have you, but I _don’t._ There’s supposed to be a balance with these things. What happens over there also happens over here. That’s the natural _order.”_ He tilted his head so that their faces were level. “So while he’s fucking you, I’m supposed to have someone to fuck, too. But I don’t, because you’re a twin. That means I get _stiffed._ You follow?”

Roxas wanted to shake his head. He wasn’t really – following at all. Not even slightly. This guy was… weird. But he kind of got the feeling that pretending to understand was what Axel required, so instead he nodded, just slightly.

Satisfied, the guy nodded back. “Yeah, you get me. Of _course_ you do – it’s because you belong over here with me.”

Roxas had a little trouble with that one. “Huh?”

“Haven’t you been listening?” Axel asked, looking affectionately exasperated. “Since you’re a twin, that means that one of you was _originally_ meant to exist over here. You’re an anomaly, Roxas – one of us, but born into _that_ world. So Lea is supposed to be fucking your _brother,_ while I get to fuck you. That’s how it works.” He lowered over Roxas again, expression dimming into something more serious now, eyes roaming over Roxas’ features in a way that made the blond’s skin prickle uneasily. “Not that it’d just be – physical. I know you’re more than just a great lay. I want to be with you, Roxas. We’re supposed to be together.”

“Um…” Roxas’ voice caught in his throat, hoarse and unsure. “I don’t… You should probably…” He drew an unsteady breath. “Please – back off.”

Axel looked momentarily surprised, frowning before drawing slowly back. “…Well, anyway,” he went on, after a short pause, continuing as if the unsettling tangent hadn’t taken place, “I can’t take you to a hospital or anything, or they’ll kill you. Your kind doesn’t exactly fit in over here. They’d sniff you right out and break your neck.”

Roxas… could hear the truth of his words. He didn’t need to be psychic to figure out that Axel was being completely genuine with him. He swallowed. “Okay,” he croaked, absorbing this unfortunate fact. “In that case – I’ll go to the hospital when I get back to my… world…” He trailed off as Axel’s face began rapidly darkening before he could finish getting the words out.

“You want to go _back?”_ He was on top of Roxas in a heartbeat, knees either side of his waist, strong hands pinning Roxas’ wrists to the bed by his sides. Arched over him, glowering suddenly, Axel stated, “You _can’t._ You’re finally _here._ I’ve had to watch that moron chase you around for _months._ I could’ve sealed the deal in a week, at most. I’d have been fucking you raw this entire time, and you’d have been _begging_ me for more.”

“Stop that,” Roxas snapped, glaring up at him. “Get off me, and let me go. And don’t talk about _Lea_ like that.”

Axel’s grip, if anything, went tighter. “Why shouldn’t I?” he growled. “He’s _nothing_ compared to me. He’d be dead in minutes over here, but _I_ carved my own path, bloody and strong. I’m the one who deserves you – not him.”

“Nobody _deserves_ me,” Roxas argued. “I _choose_ who I’m with, and I chose Lea. Now get – _off!”_ He twisted, lifting a knee sharply into Axel’s groin, lacking much in the way of impact but giving him enough of a jolt to force a retreat. The bowl of water clattered loudly to the ground as Axel accidentally kicked it, the noise startling them both, the water splashing wide.

While Roxas was distracted by that, Axel lunged. He grabbed hold of Roxas, the blond gasping, his cry suddenly changing halfway through, becoming a strangled scream as Axel used the opportunity to, with savage strength, wrench his arm back into its socket. It was excruciating, the world going black around the edges. His voice became muffled as Axel then kissed him, a deep, hard kiss that sucked the broken voice right out of Roxas’ mouth.

In the end, he hung limp in Axel’s grasp, the redhead’s kisses becoming feverish, Roxas in a state of shock.

He was saved by the door slamming open. Axel, seeming to remember himself, sucked a sharp breath and twisted around, the short-haired woman who’d burst in so unceremoniously loudly demanding, “What the _fuck_ is all that noise about?” Identifying the redhead, she spat, “Axel? What are _you_ doing in _my_ room!?”

“Larxene,” Axel muttered, followed by, _“Shit.”_ He scrambled off the bed, scrubbing his mouth as Roxas panted for air. A terrible enervation had seized him, his mind struggling to focus. He could dimly hear Axel verbally sparring with the woman. “Look, I’ll just grab him and get out of your freakish hair, okay?”

“Who _is_ he? _I_ haven’t seen him before. Are you kidnapping little boys, Axel?”

“Yeah, and molesting them on your bed,” was the sarcastic answer, Roxas vaguely thinking that, actually, he wasn’t too far off with that one. “He’s nobody. He’s not your concern.”

“Oh, but he _is._ I can see from here that someone’s beaten him to shit, and that makes him _interesting.”_ She stalked over, an acidic face entering Roxas’ field of vision as he lolled his head over towards her.

“He’s just new in town, all right?” Axel exclaimed, hurrying along behind her, trying to insert himself between them before she could get a good look at Roxas. “If that’s not _okay_ with you, I’ll take him and get out.”

“No, _no,”_ she breathed, holding up a hand and smacking it into Axel’s face. “I don’t _think_ so, Axel.” Her voice went sickly sweet, an unstable, razor-thin smile splitting her face. “Well, well – _somebody’s_ being naughty,” she said in a lilting sing-song. “This boy is one of _them,_ isn’t he? The stench of light is all over him. Axel, what _have_ you done?”

“He’s one of us now,” Axel argued, pulling at her arm, trying to get her away from the bed. “He’ll lose that light before long. Just stay away from him, Larxene.”

“Stay away? In my own _room?”_ She turned, and with a swift, vicious motion, punched Axel so that he staggered back. In the brief time that he was off balance, she slid across the bed and grabbed Roxas by the belt loops of his jeans, dragging him sharply along and tugging him right off the other side. He fell to the floor with a yelp, before finding himself yanked into a crushing headlock. The woman’s forearm was pressed to his throat hard enough to block off nearly all air, Roxas scrabbling at it until she tightened to the point of completely choking him. She only loosened enough for him to thinly inhale when he stopped fighting her, grinning nastily across the room at Axel, who stood rooted in place, looking equal parts furious and petrified.

“Now,” she said, laughingly, “how about we have that conversation again, with some _changes_ this time?”

“Larxene, don’t you hurt him,” Axel desperately warned, as if he had any leverage whatsoever right now. “I will tear your head off and kick it off the highest tower in Castle Oblivion.”

She let out a derisive, _“Hah!”_ then asked, voice like a whip, “Where’d you get him, Axel? Who _is_ this adorable, light-filled little muffin, huh?” She pinched Roxas’ cheek painfully, cooing down at him.

“He – he isn’t ‘light-filled’,” Axel stubbornly responded, Roxas sending over an incredulous look at the guy’s priorities. “He’s one of us, he just doesn’t know it yet. He’s a twin, Larxene. That means he was originally meant for _here.”_

“Ooh, a twin, huh?” She turned to study Roxas with a small amount of curiosity. “So he’s a _turncoat._ Too good to be born into _our_ world?” Her grip around his neck suddenly tightened to such a degree that Roxas felt like it might snap at any second, what little air he had in his lungs coming out in a fractured gurgle.

_“Larxene!”_

As Axel made as if to leap across the bed, she abruptly loosened her grip to allow Roxas a screeching breath. However, the pressure was replaced, entirely too quickly, by the point of something chillingly _sharp_ against his throat. Both Roxas and Axel froze in place as Larxene held a short knife against the soft underside of his jaw, slipped out from within her sleeve. “Ah-ah-ah, slow down, Axel. Let’s… take it easy, shall we?”

“Larxene, that’s enough,” he growled, eyes burning, yet so obviously overwhelmed by his helplessness right now. “Don’t you dare do anything to Roxas.”

“But he’s one of _them,_ Axel,” she said, her tone hard, for once lacking its mocking tone. “What are you doing, trying to protect this interloper? He doesn’t belong here.”

“So – I’ll put him back,” Axel anxiously proposed, as if he hadn’t just recently been telling Roxas that he was meant to stay. “No one needs to know he was here in the first place. Come on, Larxene – you kill him here, and who knows what happens over in the other realm?”

Larxene made a show of mulling this over. “Well, you may have a point there…” She then broke off with a guffaw, sticking the knife the tiniest bit into Roxas’ flesh. “Get it? Point!” She sneered at Axel, her answer already clear upon her face. “But, to be honest, I _want_ to know what happens over there. Will his twin die, too? Just how connected _are_ those little cheats?” She readied the knife with a manic grin. “Let’s find out!”

As she talked, Roxas’ fingers had been creeping towards the bowl on the ground. When he felt Larxene tensing to slash his throat, he snatched it up and swung it over his shoulder, smashing it with all the strength he could muster into her face. It was enough to provide a break in her grip as she reeled, Roxas following it up with an elbow into her side and clawing free, scrambling away on hands and knees. Before he could get too far, he was stopped, a howl tearing from his throat, as a bloody-nosed Larxene, grinning through red teeth, stabbed the knife through his jeans and into his calf.

“Was that supposed to be your getaway plan?” she crowed, dragging herself towards him, wrenching the knife free and winding up to jam it next into his thigh. Axel once again came to the rescue, the second time now that he was saving Roxas from a crazed female in this place, Larxene’s knife passing harmlessly through the towel as he leapt behind her and hooked it around her hand as she swung. He twisted it, dislodging the knife from her grip, before sitting hard on her back and winding the towel around her throat.

With Roxas watching on in horror, Axel jerked the towel tighter and tighter, white-knuckled, mercilessly choking the life out of Larxene right in front of him. “Wait… _wait…_ Axel, _stop!”_ he eventually managed to cry, as Larxene’s tongue bulged out of her mouth, her eyes seeming too large for their sockets. Axel… didn’t listen.

He killed her, right there on the floor of her own bedroom.

As her lifeless body slipped to the floor, Axel relaxing his grip on the towel, Roxas found that he was shaking relentlessly, all over. Noticing the intensity of his distress, Axel panted, “She would’ve – she would’ve alerted everyone to your being here. She wouldn’t have let it go, Roxas.” Meeting his gaze determinedly, he stated, “It was her or you, and I made the choice.” He stood, kicking Larxene’s body to one side, so that it was up against the bed, out of sight to anyone else who might come through the door looking for her. He then bent, and with the same hand that had helped to strangle a woman to death, offered to help Roxas to his feet.

The boy… stared at it.

“We have to go, Roxas,” Axel softly said, seeming to understand, at the very least, that any sudden movement or loud noise right now could send him into a panic.

Reluctantly, Roxas grasped the proffered hand. Axel gently helped him upright, Roxas letting out a small noise and all but sagging into his arms at the pain that spiked through his leg where Larxene had stabbed him. Fretting, Axel sat him on the bed and, to Roxas’ utter, skin-crawling chagrin, used the towel that had killed Larxene to wrap around the wound for the time being.

“We need to make it so you stand out less…” Axel thought for a moment, eyes darting around the room, before settling on the changing screen. He popped to his feet and strode over to it, while Roxas hunched over, clutching the edge of the bed and struggling not to lose his lunch. His mind was awhirl. _This can’t be real. This is insane. I’m still in bed with Lea – this is just a nightmare._

Pretty goddamn real for a nightmare, though.

Axel brought back a long, black coat, holding it out and sizing Roxas up with a look. “This is Larxene’s, but it should fit you; you’re not too big.”

Roxas curled an apprehensive lip, but hesitantly took the coat, aware that Axel was right about needing to go undercover. Walking around half-naked was only going to attract more unwanted attention. Standing up, favouring his left leg, he pulled the coat over his bare upper half and zipped it. Axel tugged the hood over his head, bending to peer into his face as he adjusted it to hide as much of Roxas as possible. “There… much better…” His hands on Roxas faltered, then stroked the outside of the hood, almost reverently. “You look just like one of us, now,” he huskily commented.

Roxas’ glaring eyes pierced him. “I’m not, though,” he answered, his first rattled words since Larxene’s demise. “Larxene figured that out fast enough; why can’t you?” As the man withdrew, expression flattening, he took a fortifying breath and said, “I think – that you should help me get home, Axel. I don’t belong here.”

“But you do!” Axel countered earnestly. As he tried to reach for Roxas again, the blond stepped out of range, averting his face. Axel’s hands hovered in the air, then sank. “…You’ll learn,” he eventually muttered. “You’ll – you’ll realise it before long. You’ll know it like I know it.” When Roxas said nothing, he sighed. “Anyway, let’s just – get away from Larxene before anyone comes along. I’ll take you to a safe place.”

Somehow, Roxas doubted that.

 


	2. Inverted Pt 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: AkuRoku
> 
> Words: 8,319
> 
> Rating: M
> 
> Once again, this was edited while sick and hasn't been checked since (still sick), so I am just having faith that it all works out. If anyone sees anything particularly glaring in the way of errors, do please give a shout and I'll dive in with the scalpel.

With nowhere else to go – and no one else who might protect him from the rabid insanity of this shadow realm – Roxas obediently, if silently, fell into step with Axel. The redhead surreptitiously put an arm around him, to help him limp along, his lower leg burning with pain and the heat of the blood soaking into the towel. His breaths coming shallowly, Roxas fought to keep himself together, well aware that he had no luxury for bemoaning his various agonies right now. Maybe later.

Maybe with Lea, if he ever managed to return.

A quick glance at Axel, though, didn’t fill him with hope. The man’s gaze was set doggedly forward, his sights purely focused on getting Roxas to the ‘safe place’, after which…

Well, Roxas didn’t even know what. And he was rapidly losing the ability to continue fighting. Each encounter in this godforsaken place was pushing him to utmost.

Eager to make sure there wasn’t going to be another one any time soon, conscious of how exhausted Roxas had become, Axel hurried him as fast as his leg would allow along the long, white hallway. Whenever they heard someone coming, footsteps echoing along the stretching corridors, he would whisper a curse and quickly sweep them around the next corner, a hand on the back of Roxas’ head to keep his face down. Their path was random, though Axel did appear to have an ultimate destination in mind he was attempting to steer them towards. Roxas, meanwhile, lost all sense of where they were, if ever he’d had even the slightest inkling in the first place. He noticed, some way along, that a trail of red spatters was being littered in his wake, the weakness in his body mounting. He couldn’t stop shaking.

When the shadows around them started growing thicker, it happened gradually at first, Roxas hardly noticing a difference, since everywhere he looked was steeped in that persistent, grey-washed gloom. But soon they took on a crowding quality, seeming to – shift with a mind of their own, like maggots writhing out of the corners of his eyes. When he turned his head, clutching automatically at Axel’s sleeve, the redhead frowned and followed his gaze, his steps faltering as he saw what Roxas had detected. He whirled, looking back the way they’d come, Roxas turning as well and discovering that all along the trail of blood droplets, the shadows were stretching, roiling, taking shape: small, black figures emerging unlike any creature Roxas had ever seen. If he had to liken them to something, he would have chosen insects – their antennae and swarming mindset placed that image in mind, along with a shudder of revulsion at the realisation that they were attracted to his blood.

Axel’s face grew heavy, an arm passing instinctively in front of Roxas in a protective gesture as more and more of the little _things_ formed and started cluttering the hallway. They scratched with black claws at the dotted blood – then, several at a time, seemed to sense the presence of the being that had shed them. Roxas felt a chill as their blank, yellow-eyed attention found him, with still more of them coming from the shadows.

“What _are_ they?” he asked, horrified.

 _“Sh!”_ Axel hissed, but too late – at the sound of Roxas’ voice, the creatures bristled, and, as one, surged forwards. Axel cried, _“Run!”_ and suddenly, neither of them cared a damn about Roxas’ stabbed calf. They sprinted along, Axel with a hand twisted firmly into the back of Roxas’ coat so that he couldn’t stumble and fall behind, pushing him so that he was always half a step ahead.

As they approached a junction, Axel barked, _“Left!”_ and they swerved around it, passing a startled, black-clothed figure, who uttered a mystified, “Axel?”

“Demyx, _run!”_ he yelled back, the guy barely hesitating before taking off in the opposite direction, managing to dodge the black wave of creatures at the junction by a bare second. Roxas gasped for air, fighting to keep his feet, knowing that the slightest stumble would mean – what, exactly? He didn’t want to find out. Axel’s terror was enough.

He felt the towel slipping from around his leg, dislodged by all the running despite how tightly Axel had tied it, and several flapping steps later it dropped away, nearly tripping him up, forcing him to hop over it, Axel staggering slightly beside him at the abrupt change in gait. Roxas chanced a look back, and wheezed out, _“Axel!”_

The redhead glanced over his shoulder, still running, and saw what Roxas had spotted: the towel, soaked as it was in Roxas’ blood, was acting as a temporary beacon for the surging creatures, which circled around and crashed down upon it like a wave. “Keep going!” Axel urged, and they continued on, Roxas’ right foot stamping red prints with every step now that there was nothing to hold back the blood.

At last, Axel yanked him bodily down one final passageway and threw a door open, shoving Roxas ahead so that he fell to his knees, slamming the door shut and grabbing two large, bladed wheels from beside it. Backing up rapidly, Roxas following suit and dragging himself along until he hit a bed, Axel gripped the wheels tightly and waited for the black creatures to follow them through. Their heavy breaths filled the room, Roxas with his head tilted back against the end of the bed, chest heaving, wide eyes glued to the door.

They both went still as what little light showed under the door went suddenly dark, like a black cloud had descended. Then came the scratching, the scrabbling of claws against wood, growing in volume and insistence until Roxas clamped his hands over his ears, certain he’d be hearing it in his nightmares for years to come. Several bony claws attempted entry under the door, but Axel was ready, slamming his weapons down the second anything appeared, slicing them clean off. Roxas watched in horrified fascination as they wriggled around for several seconds before disintegrating into nothingness.

Noticing that they were still aiming for the blood that Roxas tracked everywhere, including a long line of it that stretched from the doorway over to the bed, Axel, in a fit of quick-thinking, unzipped his coat and threw it down over the red gleam, stomping down so it would absorb it, as if this would put them off the scent. Astonishingly, it did in fact do the job – slowly, the scratching lessened. With Axel continuing to annihilate anything that tried coming under the door, and the creatures’ inability to claim high enough mental function to operate a door handle, their numbers dwindled until, at last, light returned under the door.

“…They’re back in the shadows,” Axel finally concluded, still standing wary at the door, but relaxing enough to look over at Roxas. “You’re safe here. This is my room – nobody will come barging in this time.”

“What _were_ those things?” the boy demanded, voice jumping, fingers trembling against the sides of his face.

Axel gave a weary sigh, dragging a wrist over his perspiring brow. “Heartless. They exist in the shadows. The only thing that draws them more than darkness…” He cast an apprehensive eye over Roxas’ bleeding form. “…is light.”

Roxas’ mouth went thin. “…So they’re going to keep coming after me, is that what you’re saying?”

Axel paced away from the door. “No! No – well, maybe, I guess. They must have sensed you in the blood. Before that – maybe I was keeping you shielded, being near me… Now, though…” He was talking more to himself than to Roxas, trying to figure it out aloud, breaking off to shake his head in consternation. “I don’t _know,”_ he repeated, agitatedly. “Let me think.” He was breathing unsteadily, still recovering from the pursuit, his gaze raking Roxas’ prone form with frustration. “It’s – it’s all that _light_ inside you that’s the problem. If it wasn’t for that, you’d be fine, no one would even _notice_ you, you’d fit right in.” His eyes darted back and forth, head twitching, before he came to a bleak conclusion: “We have to get it out of you.”

Roxas’ eyes flared wide. “Excuse me?”

Axel discarded his weapons with a clatter that made Roxas wince, stalking to where he slumped against the bed and grabbing fistfuls of his borrowed black coat. With a grunt, he hauled Roxas upright, then tossed him onto the bed. Bouncing on the mattress, Roxas cried out, pain bursting through his leg. “Axel, wait – I’m still bleeding!”

“I don’t care,” the man snapped, hands passing over him impatiently, as if seeking something in the folds of his coat. “If we don’t get that light out of you, you’re dead anyway.” He located Roxas’ zipper and dragged it roughly down, exposing his bare chest, fingers now probing their way across his belly and chest, digging uncomfortably into his flesh. “It’s got to be in here somewhere,” Axel muttered, eyes narrowed. Pressing a hand onto Roxas’ sternum, he wondered, “The heart, maybe?”

“What are you planning to _do?”_ Roxas demanded, with a spike of fear. “Tear out my _heart?_ Because _I don’t think people survive that.”_

“I have to find it,” Axel snarled back, loud and hoarse, nearly punching Roxas in the chest as he spoke. “The Heartless will keep coming if I don’t, and Demyx – Demyx saw me with you! If he comes and sees you like this, I’ll have to kill him, too! I’ll have to kill all of them, and I _don’t think I can manage that.”_

“Then, don’t!” Roxas frantically suggested, hands on his wrists, trying to push him away. Axel slapped him away, pinning his arms above his head with one hand, Roxas’ injured shoulder searing.

“I don’t have a choice!” he cried. “Damn it, Roxas, if you don’t want to die, you have to let me find it and take it from you! If I don’t, they’ll all find you, and you won’t be able to stay here!”

Roxas glared up at him, teeth gritted through the pain, and with dwindling strength but rising anger declared, “I don’t want to stay!”

“You don’t mean that,” Axel frenziedly told him, fingernails digging into the skin above his heart. “You were _supposed –”_

“I don’t care where I was _supposed_ to be!” Roxas bawled up into his face, turning pink with the effort of the volume. “I care about where I am, and _I don’t want to be here!_ I want to go home, back to the people I love! I want to go back to Sora, and to Lea!”

Anger flaring in Axel’s features, he snatched the edges of Roxas’ unzipped coat and gave the boy a hard shake. _“Lea!”_ Even as his face was contorting with his rage, though, there appeared a glimmer of something else that caused him to hesitate. “Wait – you said you want to go back to the people you _love,”_ he said, trepidation creeping through his bearing. “Then, you said _Lea –_ what does that mean? Do you – love Lea?” Roxas stared up at him, throat shifting as he swallowed. A pause passed, into which he hadn’t the nerve to speak, that silence conveying all the answer Axel required. He all but dropped Roxas  back to the bed, as if burned. _“No,”_ he thickly muttered, followed by, _“Shit.”_ He then roared it, the tendons standing out on his neck: _“SHIT!”_ Slamming a fist to the bed, close enough to make Roxas jump, he hung his head so that it touched against Roxas’ chest, the boy awash with bewilderment, heart pounding at the violence of Axel’s reaction.

“A-Axel?” he worked up the courage to query, after a short while.

It took him a little longer to respond, his eventual mutter being that of, _“Love.”_ He shifted atop Roxas – the moment suddenly so reminiscent of when Lea had fallen asleep on him that the déjà vu was dizzying in its intensity – then pulled himself off, sitting on the edge of the bed with rigid shoulders and a heavy head. “I can’t compete,” he eventually said, tone bitter. “You _love_ Lea. As Axel… I’ll never be enough. If it’s him you love, with all his _light,_ then I was beaten before I even started.”

Seeing him sitting there, looking so wretched, and – so _very_ like Lea, more than ever right now – Roxas couldn’t help but feel a pang. “Axel…” He ran a hand over his weary face and eyed the man’s melancholic profile with his fingers across his lips. “You know, it isn’t just Lea,” he offered awkwardly, the man’s head twitching towards him. “I mean, you and Lea – technically, you’re the same person, right?”

“We’re not _the same,”_ Axel growled. “Are you the same as your brother? Because he’s the one who would have been your other, if everything had happened like it _should have.”_

“All right, not the same, then,” Roxas corrected. “But – I mean, comparing me and Sora is different to comparing you and Lea. He and I _are_ brothers, but you – you and Lea, you’re just opposite sides of the mirror, right?” Axel scowled, but didn’t argue. “Doesn’t that mean,” Roxas carefully suggested, “that by loving Lea, there’s a part of _you_ that I love, by extension?”

Axel stiffened. He looked over at Roxas at last, frowning. “…Do you mean that?”

Roxas shrugged a little. “You’d never met me before I turned up here, but even so, you wanted to keep me here forever. That means that you and Lea are connected, don’t you think? Otherwise, I’d just be another nobody to you. I mean, how did you even know that the witch had me?”

“Because… because Lea –” Axel cut himself off, lapsing into thought. “Lea went looking for you, and you weren’t there. That’s when I knew you had to be on this side, and went searching for you.” He gave a small, humourless laugh. “I thought it was my big chance. That things were righting themselves, but it was all just… the stupid witch, being crazy and dragging you over here.”

“But if it wasn’t for Lea, you wouldn’t know me at all,” Roxas pointed out, shifting restlessly, voice growing tired. “That’s what I’m trying to say, Axel. The two of you – you’re not just two separate entities. You _are_ connected. So doesn’t it stand to reason that if I’m in love with Lea, then – there’s a little bit of you in Lea who is loved, as well?”

Axel was silent for a long while, processing this. Roxas closed his eyes and willed him to believe it. He didn’t know if _he_ did, necessarily – a lot of this was simply an attempt to calm the guy down, and stop his talk of removing Roxas’ heart while he slowly bled out across the bedcovers. But he couldn’t help but be the slightest bit moved by the seriousness with which Axel was considering his words. Was Lea – really somewhere in this guy? _Were_ they one and the same, separated by nothing more than… shadows and circumstance?

“Am I just… supposed to let you go?” Axel asked at last, quiet and resentful.

Roxas sighed. “I’ll die over here if you don’t,” he bluntly reminded him. “And you can’t just remove my light, either. If you try, I’ll never forgive you.” When Axel looked like maybe he could handle a lack of forgiveness if it meant he still had access to Roxas, he pointedly added, “Not to mention you’d probably kill me in the process.” Swallowing hard, gaze tracking over the ceiling in an unfocused sort of way, he mumbled, “As it stands, I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up, anyway.”

These were the words that finally reached Axel, slapping some sense into him. Looking over at Roxas’ leg, he muttered, “Shit.” The bed sheets, once white, were now stained with red in a slowly blossoming halo around Roxas’ leg. “Wait here,” he said.

A rough, whispering laugh left Roxas’ lips. “That’s the easy part.”

Axel returned after a couple of minutes of rustling around the room, toting a fresh towel, another bowl of water, and a roll of bandaging. Blue eyes wandering blearily around the room, Roxas observed in a murmur, “This looks… the same as where Larxene died.”

Axel glanced up from where he was carefully pulling the blood-soaked leg of Roxas’ jeans up. “Yeah. They’re all the same. It’s what Castle Oblivion looks like, I guess. We’re part of the same Organisation.”

“Organisation…?”

Axel shrugged lightly. “Just a collection of us over here that go around keeping the peace, more or less.”

Arching a brow, Roxas incredulously echoed, “Keep the _peace?”_ Axel looked over, meeting his gaze for a moment. “You don’t seem like much of a peacekeeper to me.”

The man lifted his chin, pride in his features. “I left a trail of blood behind me, until they recognised that I was meant for the job. Life as an Organisation member is full of perks. Well worth the hard work it takes to get here.”

“You _murdered_ your way to becoming a peacekeeper,” Roxas dully summarised, wondering if Axel was even capable of comprehending the awful irony, or feeling the faintest flicker of remorse for his actions.

“Hey, if it wasn’t me, it’d just be someone else,” Axel flippantly replied, taking the towel and starting to wipe the blood from his leg.

Hissing with pain, Roxas asked through his teeth, “And what happens to the people on the other side? When your other dies – then what?”

“They get sick,” Axel answered, without missing a beat, as if they were discussing the lunch menu at a restaurant rather than people’s lives.

Aghast at this information, and the utter _casualness_ of Axel’s attitude, he demanded, _“What?”_

Axel darted over a faintly annoyed look. “What? It’s better than being dead, isn’t it? They can recover. They don’t _always,_ but it’s not like they don’t have a chance – which is more than you can say for the ones over here. We just dissolve into shadows.”

Roxas blinked at this, gaping at the man, who was still working at gathering all the blood, the towel looking gory. Axel couldn’t have cared less about either the people he’d killed _or_ the ones who got sick as a result on the other side. He was just – concerned with his own progress, his own power. What was worse, he didn’t seem to consider this unusual, as though it was the way they _all_ were over here. And he – he expected Roxas to want to _remain?_

Brow furrowing, Roxas looked at the ceiling, swallowing his opinions of this dark, twisted side of the mirror and just… hoping it would all be over soon. He had to consider the possibility of escaping from Axel, somehow, if he proved uncooperative. But – then what?

And… what would happen to Sora, if Roxas somehow – died? If he was supposed to be Sora’s other, born into the world of light only by sheer luck, did they or did they not share that same connection? If one of them died – would the other fall ill? If Roxas allowed himself to die over here because he charged off on his own – a likely scenario, all things considered – would Sora then get… sick?

He shut his eyes, a low breath escaping him, experiencing a flutter of despair for the first time since arriving in this place. It had all been so violent and fast he hadn’t had time to properly _consider_ things yet. That he had the same psychic abilities as Sora gave him the slightest edge, in that he already knew that things like other worlds existed, so he wasn’t a gibbering _mess_ like he might have been if he was otherwise normal. But still – his ability to keep his cool was at breaking point.

Axel chose this moment to pause in his ministrations. He had mopped up the blood, the bowl beside him a deep red, much the same as the towel. Now, Roxas’ flesh was, for the moment, damp and golden, pale around the edges of the knife wound, which was already starting to overflow again. Axel’s hands trailed down the length of his calf, brushing softly along with a reverent expression on his face. “Every part of you is so warm and soft,” he murmured, smearing a trickle of blood with his thumb.

“Axel,” Roxas snapped, lifting his head from the bed to woozily glare at the man. “Finish the damn job. I feel _sick_ from all the blood I’ve lost. You need to wrap it up, and then I _need_ a hospital.”

Axel’s face fell, that same darkness from earlier returning to his eyes. His hands tightened briefly around Roxas’ leg… but then, with reluctant obedience, he picked up the bandaging and started unrolling it. “A hospital. So – _your_ world, then,” he supposed, the bitterness back in full swing. “With _Lea.”_ Glowering down at Roxas’ leg, hands moving to wrap the bandaging around, he gritted, “He was never meant to have you in the first place. This… this is supposed to be _mine._ You are supposed to be with _me.”_

“Ah, cut the shit, Axel.” Roxas irritably dropped his head back to the pillow, patience run beyond its limit. “Use your damn brain, would you? If I can figure it out with _blood loss,_ you should have realised it ages ago: if I’d been born into this world, you’d have never so much as known I existed. I’m _Sora’s_ other, according to you, right? Well, Sora’s got a boyfriend – and he’d never have met Lea, which means you would not, in fact, be with me. It’d all be different.”

Axel’s hands faltered, his face rising from his task, eyes wide at the revelation. “No – wait… Then… But maybe Lea would have met him later on…?”

“No,” Roxas answered curtly, “he wouldn’t have. Sora’s been dreaming of the same guy since we were kids, and he _found_ him recently. Now that they’re together, there’s no way he’ll ever have eyes for anyone else. So whoever _that_ guy is, that’s who I would have ended up with in this place. Technically, _he’s_ the one getting stiffed. Get it, now? If it wasn’t for me being a twin, neither you _or_ Lea would know a damn thing about me, let alone be ‘fucking’ me. So take that for whatever it’s worth to you, Axel.”

Axel looked like he’d been punched. He pulled the gauze tight, a sharp, knee-jerk reaction, causing Roxas to grunt with the pain of it, before he resumed wrapping it around. “So… If you had been over here like you were meant to…”

“We would never have met.” Idly, Roxas remarked, “You probably would have preferred that – at least then you’d have had a chance with someone else.”

 _“No.”_ He blinked, twisting his head on the pillow to look down at Axel, bent over his leg, once again pausing in the bandaging. “I wouldn’t want that,” the redhead hotly said. Before Roxas could comment, he continued wrapping the gauze, making it snug and tight. Though the blood continued to seep through, it was slowing with the added pressure.

“What are you, a masochist?” Roxas softly asked.

“I want _you,”_ Axel said, words strained, eyes focused burningly on Roxas’ leg. “I wish it was me and not Lea, but if it has to be like this, then – fine. At least I still know we’re connected, somehow. But the thought of you not even _existing_ in my life, of you being with someone else entirely?” He shook his head fiercely, giving another sharp, wince-inducing tug. “That’s not what I’d prefer,” he muttered.

“…So, what are you saying?” Roxas cautiously asked, Axel heaving an impatient sigh as he finished the bandaging effort and stuck the gauze in place. He scowled down at it for a long moment, then lifted his eyes to Roxas’.

“I’m saying – I’m saying that at least you being with Lea is better than nothing. And yes, you need a hospital. This knife wound isn’t going to close on its own. You need help.”

“You’re – going to help me get home?”

“I’m… going to help you get help,” Axel replied, glancing away with obvious displeasure and, perhaps, some disappointment. “You can’t stay here, or you’ll die. And… hell, if keeping you with Lea is the closest I’ll ever get to you…” He sighed again, scrubbing a hand at the back of his head. “I don’t know. Maybe I _am_ a masochist. But – this is better than nothing. I _think.”_ He grimaced. “It’s better than you dying, or never knowing about me and Lea at all.” He stood, gathering up the bowl and soiled towel. As he turned away to dispose of them, he said, a little ominously, “I’ve got conditions, though.”

Expression becoming shuttered, Roxas asked neutrally, “Oh?”

Axel disappeared behind the change screen and tipped the water out, gurgling down a sink out of sight. When he reappeared, wiping his hands on his shirt, he wore a sly, crafty look. “Two things. Two requests.” Approaching the bed, he stood over Roxas, hands on hips, and stared for a moment. “First, I want a kiss.”

Roxas’ eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you already kiss me? You know – when I was screaming in pain?”

“Then,” Axel amended, “I want _you_ to kiss _me.”_ As Roxas considered this, he coaxed, “Come on, it’s not that bad, right? I mean – you’re the one who said that Lea and me are basically the same.”

“Lea hasn’t killed people.”

 _“Lea,”_ Axel said silkily, “just hasn’t had the chance yet.” His gaze bore into Roxas’, a splinter of hunger within his expression that sent the smallest of shivers down Roxas’ spine.

Finally, he conceded. “Fine. But I’m not sitting up. My leg hurts like a bitch.”

“Fine with me,” Axel answered, and climbed onto the bed, depositing himself on Roxas’ abdomen, just north of his hips. With a hand planted either side of his head, Roxas found himself staring up at a thoroughly serious Axel. They regarded each other for a long moment, Roxas making the first move when it became apparent that Axel wasn’t going to, true to his ‘you kiss _me’_ demand.

Reaching a hand up, Roxas first, hesitantly, touched a thumb against one of the marks beneath his eyes. Tattoos, he now realised. Permanent. Other than that… there was literally no other physical difference between Axel and Lea. Roxas thought that the blazing green of Lea’s eyes – especially when he was aroused, or focused on Roxas, as Axel currently was – to be entirely unique to him. But Axel was making the breath catch in his throat just like Lea did. There was such an intensity to it. The way that Axel was looking at him was – achingly familiar.

Roxas swallowed. Wrapping his hand around the back of Axel’s head, he tugged the man gently downward, lifting up from the pillow a short way to meet him. As their lips neared, warm breaths mingling, he felt Axel tense with anticipation, hands tightening on the bed. When their mouths connected, softly at first, Axel exhaled, his tongue coming out to seek entry beyond Roxas’ chastely closed lips. When Roxas didn’t immediately grant access, he groaned quietly against him, begging quietly, “Please. Please…”

Taking pity on him, Roxas parted his lips, allowing the kiss to deepen, Axel’s tongue meeting his own gratefully. When Roxas thought about it, barring any _other_ unforeseen attacks by witches, if he managed to get out of this place, he’d never be back again – which meant that this was the only kiss Axel was ever going to get from him. Suddenly, he understood a little better why it was one of Axel’s conditions. He wrapped his other arm behind Axel, drawing him down as he lowered back to the pillow, before moving his hands to cup the sides of the man’s face. For several minutes – far longer than Roxas had initially planned – their lips met and parted, tongues touching and sliding, breaths slow, much like the kiss itself. Axel was surprisingly restrained; Roxas had been expecting him to push his luck, considering how he had behaved initially. But he was just – taking what he could get, it seemed. There was a crease between his brows that looked… almost pained.

He really – did care about Roxas. He was as dark and warped as this place could make a person, but even so, there was… _love_ in his heart. Or as close to such a thing as he could get.

Eventually, before either of them could get… carried away… Roxas, with an internal acknowledgment of some regret, ended the kiss. Axel, reluctant to stop, pressed a few damp pecks against Roxas’ chin and jaw… but when the blond didn’t respond, he forced himself up, meeting Roxas’ gaze hazily. He swallowed hard. “…Thanks.”

Roxas shook his head slightly, dismissing the idea of needing to be thanked for such a thing. He was feeling… confused, to be perfectly honest. Axel and Lea were beginning to blur together inside him. 

“Now,” the man said, his voice hoarse, “my second condition.”

Roxas went still, wondering warily what it was going to be. If it was sex, would he refuse? Could he? Not simply out of needing Axel’s help, but – out of desiring, more than he liked to admit, this dangerous extension of Lea? Even knowing he was a killer, even knowing how violent he could be, and how cold towards others’ lives – Roxas couldn’t deny the flicker of a flame that Axel lit within him.

Maybe Roxas really was meant to have been born into this world, after all.

As Axel lowered himself back down, lips beside Roxas’ ear, the boy felt a spark of anticipation mixed with nervous unease. He didn’t _want_ to have sex with Axel, not here, not now, not under these conditions – but the attraction was _there,_ damn it, and not justbecause he was the mirror-image of Lea.

Axel licked his lips, the sound, right next to Roxas as he was, sending the slightest of shivers through the boy. “When you get back to Lea,” he huskily whispered, “do me a favour… and get him to fuck you in front of a mirror.”

There was a beat of silence, into which Roxas burst out laughing. Axel drew back and eyed him with a smirk, despite the fact that he was still being utterly genuine. That just made Roxas laugh harder. Lying on his back on a strange bed, in a strange world, with a strange man seated on his stomach, a stabbed leg, a good quart of blood lost along the way, it was pretty much all he _could_ do at this point.

“You want me to,” he chuckled, wiping leaking eyes, “get Lea to fuck me in front of a _mirror?”_

Eyes gleaming, Axel nodded. “Hard. Rough. And when he does – you won’t be able to help but think of _me.”_

Roxas drew a deep, unsteady breath, trying not to show how much that idea affected him. Eventually, once he had settled down a little, the giggles fading away, he sighed, “Okay, Axel.”

The man squinted suspiciously. “Really? You’re not just saying it?”

“Really. Sex in front of a mirror.”

Leaning down, eyes intent, Axel promised, “I’ll be watching.”

As Roxas suppressed the resultant shudder those words brought – not a negative sensation – Axel, unaware of the impact he was having, accepted Roxas’ word and swung off him, returning to his feet. Trying to sound normal, Roxas asked, after a moment, “So, now what?”

Axel had gone to the door, was picking up his coat from the floor, dragging it on despite the blood it had absorbed. As he pulled his hair from under the hood, he said, “Now, you stay here and rest. I’m going to go and find some things out.”

Tensing, Roxas lifted his head from the pillow. “What? You’re _leaving_ me here? What about the Heartless? And anyone else who might come along?”

“You’re safe here,” Axel assured him. “The rooms are sealed to the Heartless, that’s why they couldn’t just manifest out of the walls in here. But, as much as I like the idea, I can’t just keep you in here until you die.” The way he said it suggested that he really _did_ like the idea, and the chill that adhered to Roxas’ skin from the blood loss reached deeper, cutting a little into the dizzy affection he had started feeling for the man. “I need to go and ask a few careful questions, confirm some things, and then I’ll be back. I’m going to get you out of here, Roxas.” His tone was clipped – determined, now that the decision had been made, and the ‘conditions’ agreed to. But it, and his expression, softened a little at the lingering alarm on the boy’s face. “…Just use the opportunity to rest while you can. I won’t be too long. No one will come in uninvited. You’re still my secret.”

Inhaling slowly, Roxas nodded. Axel watched with a hand on the door handle as he sank back onto the pillow, blinking at the ceiling.

“Close your eyes, Roxas,” Axel quietly advised.

The boy did so, and heard the door open, then click shut again.

Exhaustion crashed over him the moment Axel was gone. All the tension that kept him alert and untrusting dissolved, making him realise just how on edge the man had him at all times. He dozed fitfully, not even noticing that he had slipped beneath consciousness until he was woken by Axel some indeterminate length of time later.

_“Roxas.”_

His eyes popped open, muscles tightening at the sight of the man bending over the bed, his face mere inches away. “What?” he demanded, sucking a breath.

“Get up. It’s time to go.”

Feeling flustered by the abrupt announcement, he wiped his face clumsily, asking, “Did something happen?”

Axel pressed his lips thin. “Not exactly. But I don’t it’s wise for us to stick around. I asked a few too many questions, and made some people suspicious.” He stepped back, allowing Roxas to sit up and lower his legs over the side of the bed. “Take your time,” Axel warned him. “You’ll probably be dizzy.”

As advised, Roxas took several deep breaths and simply sat there for a few minutes, allowing his body to adjust to being upright again. When he was ready, he nodded at Axel, who held out a hand to help him up. Roxas stood carefully, not completely trusting of his ability to remain that way, but finding that it was, some swaying notwithstanding, doable. Axel zipped his coat back up, closing his chest off from view, and swept the dark hood back over his hair. Roxas’ leg throbbed achingly, the pain like acid on his flesh, but he could hobble, barely, with Axel’s support. He wasn’t finished just yet.

“So?” he asked, a little breathless from the effort. “What’s the plan? What sorts of questions were you asking?”

“Questions about magic mirrors,” Axel grimly answered, turning him around so they could start moving towards the doorway. He paused to pick up the spiked wheels Roxas had seen him use on the Heartless, attaching them to low hooks on his belt, covering them up with his coat so that his hips looked extra wide. He glanced at Roxas’ blank expression. “That’s how you were brought here. The bitch in the tower used a magic mirror to drag you over. It was in her tower room – that’s how she manages to move around, between this world and yours. It’s the only movement she’s allowed, since we sealed her up in that room.”

“Why did you?” Roxas asked nervously.

“Dude, you’ve met her,” Axel responded archly. “Would _you_ let her run around, trying to rule the world? She thought she could take control of this place, and she got locked up for her troubles. She’s bad news.”

That _Axel_ thought someone else was bad news really was saying something. Roxas felt a little weak – weaker – at having been in her presence.

“But it’s the mirror that’s key,” Axel went on, turning to him and giving him a once-over, checking that he looked the part, even if his light gave him away if anyone got too close. “If you were brought here by a magic mirror, stands to reason that it’s a mirror that’s your ticket back out. But they don’t exactly grow on trees, you know?”

“Are we going back to her tower?” Roxas asked, feeling a thrill of apprehension at the prospect.

“Not while you’re still here and injured.” Axel shook his head, to Roxas’ relief. “I’ll be going back there – believe me, she won’t get away with this – but you’d just trip me up. I don’t want her getting near you again. We’re heading for a different mirror.”

“So, there’s more than one?”

“Yeah, but only _one.”_ Axel’s expression showed his frustration.“It was hell trying to get the location of it out of Zexion, too. He’s way too fuckin’ sharp, all like ‘Why the sudden interest, Axel? Why do you seem agitated, Axel? _Is it just me, or does something seem different about you, Axel?’”_ He gave an angry sneer. “If he’d actually come right out with the word ‘light’, I’d have killed him.”

Roxas felt his pulse quicken. “Light?”

Axel darted him a flat look. “The blood in my coat. He could sense it, I guess, just not strongly enough to start throwing accusations. So, we need to get moving before anyone comes investigating – especially if they notice Larxene missing.” He opened his arms, gesturing for Roxas to enter into them. “So, come on. I’m going to carry you. We’re hopping a corridor out of this place, and I do _not_ trust you to not trip and get lost in the darkness.” Roxas hesitated, lifting a brow. Axel rolled his eyes. “I’m not trying to trick you, Roxas. If I wanted a _hug_ , I would have made it a condition. I’m serious. One misstep in the corridor, and you’d find out a lot more about the darkness than you were ever planning to know.”

Roxas grimaced at this less than comforting notion, and stepped into the circle of Axel’s arms as requested. They closed immediately around him, holding him close, tightly, Roxas’ face pressed into his shoulder, and, again, the sense of being held by Lea was overwhelming to the point where Roxas almost held him back. He stopped himself at the last moment, merely twitching in Axel’s grasp, who, not noticing, closed his eyes and drew a breath.

Almost at once, darkness sprang about them like long, black tendrils of flame, creating a portal so opaque it was almost reflective. Axel’s grip tightened further, and a moment later Roxas was being dragged again, the gasp freezing in his chest as the darkness swallowed them whole. He squeezed his eyes shut, a moment too late to avoid seeing the near-maddening vastness of the abyss Axel had drawn him into. Time stretched and contorted, so that it was impossible to know how much or little of it passed. When they arrived at their destination, and the terrible darkness dispersed to make way for bitumen and the cold night air, Roxas felt like he’d lost a year of his life, in the span of a heartbeat.

He swayed sharply, Axel clutching at him, exclaiming, “Whoa – hey, Roxas? You holding up?”

“I’m – okay,” he mumbled, the vertigo slow to fade, his fingers tightening on Axel’s sleeve. “Just give me a moment.”

Slowly, he raised his eyes to their surroundings, hoping to ease the disorientation. They were outside; he had figured that much out by the fresh air, and the breeze. Night had fallen, but was lit by the neon signs attached to nearby buildings – tall, forbidding structures that lined the street they had emerged onto. A gigantic structure loomed at the top of a nearby hill: a castle, its lit windows staring like blank eyes into the night. The area was otherwise – strikingly empty. There wasn’t a single soul about, except for Axel and Roxas.

Unnerved, Roxas asked, “Where _are_ we?”

“Halfway across the country,” Axel informed him, looking around. “I guess they’ve got a curfew. The ruler of this place has what we’re looking for.”

“A… magic mirror?” Roxas dubiously said, still trying to wrap his head around that one.

“Your ticket home,” Axel confirmed, a glum weight to his tone.

Roxas sent him a long look, opening his mouth to speak, when a burst of motion nearby caught their attention. Heads jerking around, they watched as, on the concrete awning over a move theatre, one of the dark portals swept in and out of existence, leaving behind a black-clad young man.

Axel immediately stepped in front of Roxas, expression hardening. The young man stared down at them – or, Roxas was pretty sure that’s what he was doing. It was hard to tell, since he was wearing a strip of black cloth over his eyes, tied behind his head over long, silver hair.

Calling out to them, the newcomer said, almost casually, “It’s about time. I figured you must be Organisation, since Roxas dropped right off the map after the witch’s tower. Castle Oblivion’s the only place you could hide him that effectively.”

Axel’s eyes narrowed at the knowledge this guy wielded. Aggressively, he demanded, “Excuse me? Who the fuck are you, and what do _you_ know about Roxas?”

“I know he doesn’t belong with you,” was the young man’s swift rejoinder. Then, to Roxas, he called, “It’s okay, Roxas; I’m here to take you away from him.”

If Axel had been aggravated before, it was nothing compared to the way he swelled now. He took a step towards the interloper, hands forming fists, and snarled, “The hell you _are!_ Roxas is _mine!”_

“Actually, if you want to get technical, he should be _mine,”_ the guy delicately corrected, Axel’s eyes widening with realisation, “since his other and mine are destined soul-mates.”

At this, Axel was practically foaming. Thrusting back the sides of his coat, he unhooked his weapons. _“Destined?_ Hah! Come down here and I’ll show you just how far your _destined soul-mates_ bullshit gets you.”

“All right, then. I will.”

A black portal once again engulfed the young man, opening a split second later beside Axel, who spun to meet the threat just in time to stop a jagged-edged sword from carving into him. He knocked it aside with a clatter of steel on steel, the two of them leaping apart, Axel dragging Roxas with him so roughly the boy lost his footing and stumbled to the road.

Axel didn’t pause to apologise, was already lunging forward again, a flash of red-and-black meeting the newcomer with a loud clash of weapons. Roxas rolled onto his knees, watching with alarm as the two fought. The interloper, he saw with mounting dread, was an effective swordsman; he and Axel swung at each other with absolute abandon, aiming to maim, possibly even kill. Knowing Axel, it _would_ be to kill.

Frantically, Roxas tried to piece it together in his head – if this guy claimed to be the other of Roxas’ other, then that meant Sora, right? Which meant Sora’s boyfriend – right? So this guy was the mirror image of Sora’s boyfriend, whose name was… shit, what was it?

He flinched as Axel sustained a slash to his arm, the redhead roaring and swinging with his twin weapons, the young man leaping back, then scrambling further still as Axel’s charge continued, fuelled by rage and possessiveness. _No time for thinking!_ Roxas shoved himself to his feet, sprinting as well as his leg would allow. Axel was a storm of vicious slashes with his weapons, keeping the newcomer persistently on the back foot now that his blood had been shed, and if Roxas didn’t do _something,_ he really was going to kill the guy. That was the guy that Sora had been dreaming about all his life, damn it – or his other was. He couldn’t stand by and let this incarnation of him be killed, because then the other one would get _sick –_ and there was no way in hell he was going to let that happen to Lea, either. _Both_ of these morons needed to be stopped.

Reaching Axel, Roxas extended a hand, yelling, “Axel, _stop!”_ He snagged a handful of his coat and yanked, swinging the redhead around, reversing their positions, Axel very nearly slashing at him reflexively, halting himself at the last possible second from swinging one of the bladed wheels straight across his throat. His wild eyes went cold at the sight of Roxas suddenly standing between the two of them.

“Roxas!”

Even as he shouted the warning, Roxas suddenly discovered the hard way why it was bad to throw yourself into an armed fight with only your body. He jolted, both attackers letting out cries of anguish as the newcomer’s blade thrust partway into the meat of his left shoulder. It slid free a moment later, Roxas groaning. A familiar warmth flooded his back, accompanied by an even more sadly familiar stench: the overwhelming scent of his own blood.

 _“Roxas!”_ The guy lowered his sword and reached for him, only to be stopped sharply by Axel thrusting one of his weapons out threateningly, keeping him at bay.

Eyes ablaze, he snarled, “Don’t you come _near him!”_ His other hand dropping the second wheel, Axel protectively wrapped an arm around Roxas, who leaned against him heavily, in shock.

“I didn’t mean to,” the guy lamented. “I’m sorry – Roxas, I’m _sorry,_ I tried to stop but I didn’t have time.”

“Yeah, sure,” Axel snapped, savagely unforgiving. “You’d probably prefer that he was _dead_ rather than with me – you sick fucking _freak.”_

“That’s not true,” the newcomer returned angrily, “and you damn well know it.”

“Shut – _up!”_ Roxas growled. He was recovering slowly, still stunned by the new injury but not yet able to feel anything but the curious, buzzing heat of it. He shoved Axel away with an elbow, glaring first at him, then back at the silver-haired guy. “You – what’s your name?”

“Riku,” he answered. “I’ve taken the name of my other, in the hopes that by doing so –”

“Yeah, yeah, _walk into the light,_ blah, blah, blah,”Axel interrupted scornfully, Roxas sending him a glowering stare.

_“What?”_

“This guy is part of some order that chooses to try and ignore their darkness, follow the true path to light, blah, blah, _blah._ That’s why he’s wearing the blindfold; it’s supposed to symbolise his ‘disconnection from this realm’.” Axel couldn’t have sounded more poisonously derisive if he’d tried. He positively hated the guy.

Roxas was unimpressed. “There’s an order that emphasises that,” he said, regarding Axel severely, “and you didn’t _join it?”_

Axel’s mouth opened and closed a couple times, the man searching for the right words. “Well, I mean – why deny who you are, right?”

“You could _be,”_ Roxas stressed, anger starting to rise, “like _Lea.”_ Axel glared, but fell silent. Turning now to the one calling himself Riku, he demanded, “You know who I am?”

The guy gave a quick nod. “Yes. You’re Roxas. The second you arrived in this realm, I sensed you. I did what I could to track you down before you fell into the wrong hands.” Voice turning chilly, he added, towards Axel, “Evidently I was too late.”

“At least _I_ haven’t _stabbed him.”_ Axel’s words were acidic, Riku scowling back.

 _“Axel.”_ Roxas shot him a warning look, before turning his attention back to Riku. “Look, you need to back off, okay? I appreciate whatever this – ‘following the true path to light’ thing is – but I’m doing just fine without you, and, in fact, I’m not planning on sticking around.”

Riku went still. “What?”

“Axel’s busting me out of this place,” Roxas said, taking a step backwards towards the redhead.

“He’s – _choosing_ to? To help you?” His scepticism was vast.

“Better than seeing him end up with the likes of _you,”_ Axel muttered, radiating hostility.

“You believe him?” Riku asked Roxas. “You trust him?”

“I know him pretty well, more or less,” Roxas warily said.

“He’s in love with my other,” Axel volunteered, with a middle finger.

Through his teeth, Roxas snapped, _“Axel!”_

Riku absorbed this, considering the new information. “…Then, good. In that case, I want to help.”

This time, it was Axel’s turn to demand, _“What?”_

Roxas observed him carefully. “You want to help me – get out? Back to my world?”

“Forget it,” Axel declared, Roxas cutting him off with an impatient hand.

“I never intended to try and keep you for myself, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Riku said. “Maybe that’s what _he_ tried,” he resentfully added, a suggestion with which Roxas couldn’t exactly argue, “but I’m well aware that to remain here would kill you. You grew up in that world – whatever might have been between you and me doesn’t exist. It’s enough for me to know that my other has Sora, over in that world. You, though – you don’t belong here, Roxas. Maybe under other circumstances you would have, but you’re _of_ that world. You _need_ to return. I don’t want you to die here.”

Roxas blinked, taken aback by the guy’s grave sincerity, and the fact that this was absolutely the opposite of Axel’s original behaviour. Riku had connected the dots before they’d even met – he wasn’t going to try and force Roxas into anything, and, what’s more, he recognised straight away that Roxas’ life was in danger.

“Uh. Roxas…”

Sighing irritably, Roxas turned to Axel, ready to silence him again, his arguments petty and self-interested – until he saw what Axel wanted to mention, and his blood ran cold.

Or, more specifically, his freshly spilled blood had called out the Heartless.

 


	3. Inverted Pt 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: AkuRoku
> 
> Words: 5,191
> 
> Rating: M
> 
> Posting on top of the last one, because why not. I AM THE LAST POSTER, I HAVE MONOPOLY ON POSTING. MWAHAHA.

The shadows were boiling, reaching, crowding, the illumination from the nearby buildings seeming to strengthen their dark malevolence. Hard shapes started appearing inside the hazy gloom, Roxas backing up a step, only to turn and find that there was nowhere to retreat to – they were everywhere, bubbling up out of the darkness en masse, called by the light they could suddenly detect in their world.

“Heartless!” Riku exclaimed, readying his sword.

“Yeah, no _shit,”_ Axel barked. “They’re here for Roxas. You still want to _help out_ so bad, how about you try keeping him alive for the next ten minutes?” He hauled his second weapon back up, both he and Riku turning their backs on Roxas, keeping him between them as they faced the rapidly growing army of Heartless rising from the shadows.

“There’s no way we can stop all these,” Riku tersely assessed. “We have to run for it. What are you doing here? Where are you headed?”

“The castle,” Axel curtly replied.

“The – the _castle?”_ Riku’s head whipped briefly around. “Are you out of your _mind?_ You know that this place is run by the Beast, right? _You think he got that name because he’s fluffy?”_

“Who’s the Beast?” Roxas demanded, panicked by the increasing number of Heartless – they just kept _coming,_ being out in the open meant no limitations on the darkness, no end to their ability to manifest. If they didn’t move soon, they’d be inundated the second the Heartless attacked.

“He’s the ruler of this place,” Riku snapped, “and he’s so fucking evil he’s not even human anymore.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Axel argued fiercely, “he’s the only goddamn one with a magic mirror, and that’s the only way to get Roxas _home._ If you’ve got a better fucking idea, lay it out for me!”

Riku hissed a curse.

“Here they come!” Axel cried. Turning desperate eyes to Roxas, he yelled, _“Roxas, come on!”_ and without waiting for Riku’s approval of the plan took off, Roxas clinging to his coat. As the Heartless started surging, he slashed at them violently, clearing a path as best he could – but oh, God, they were everywhere. Roxas could feel their claws, scraping at his skin, snatching at his clothes, their dead, yellow eyes staring from every direction. He felt a sting of pain as one of them cut into him, his neck bleeding freely, and at this, the others seemed to go mad. The world became a flurry of sharp claws, Roxas howling, Axel bellowing his name, trying to free him from their clutches, Roxas clinging doggedly to his coat.

Then, a hole appeared in their ranks, a collection of them simply turning to dust – revealing Riku on the other side of them, his sword out, expression determined. “So are you going to save him,” he called to Axel, “or am I going to have to do it _for_ you?”

“Fuck you!” was Axel’s spitting response, and with that, the pair of them formed a whirlwind of blades, hacking a straight path through the Heartless, heading uphill, towards the ominous castle. The second they got through the thicker core of the creatures, they started running, Riku with a hand on Roxas’ back, Roxas still gripping Axel’s coat tightly. Whenever a Heartless got in their way, either Axel or Riku cut it down, though their ranks kept swelling, the shadows behind them disgorging the beasts left, right, and centre. They had no time to pause, no opportunity to catch their breath, the three of them heading persistently uphill, panting raggedly.

They reached the gates of the castle and slammed against them, Roxas pressed to the bars with Riku and Axel turning to face the oncoming wave of Heartless in pursuit. Kicking a heel back against them, Axel hoarsely yelled, _“Hey! Let us in! Heartless out here!”_

“They’re not going to open!” Riku snapped, and grabbed hold of Roxas, whirling towards the bars while darkness sprang up around them on all sides. An instant later, the blackness fell away, Roxas gasping deeply at the giddy sensation of having been whipped through a dark corridor just a few feet – then, before he realised why, he was screaming, sagging in Riku’s grasp.

Axel bellowed, _“You moron!”_ He did the same, vanishing in a pulse of darkness before reappearing beside them, black tendrils dissolving as he all but tore Roxas from the bewildered Riku’s grip. Riku let out a horrified noise as he saw Roxas’ face – blood streamed down in countless rivulets, his flesh covered in a network of long, hair-thin cuts. “If that was an option, _don’t you think I would have tried it?”_ Axel snarled, through bared teeth. “You think there’s a bunch of Heartless out _here?_ You just dragged him through _pure darkness_ while the Heartless are out,you useless, light-loving _shit.”_

He held the trembling Roxas close, who was still trying to comprehend what had happened. His entire body was on fire, his black coat slashed almost to ribbons, damp with his own blood. The cuts were shallow, but _everywhere._ “Come on,” Axel grunted, stowing one of his bladed wheels under his coat and using his free hand to heave Roxas up, shrugging him over one shoulder, before heading resolutely towards the castle. Riku followed behind, guarding the rear with a torn expression.

As they approached the door, Axel reared back and slammed a boot into it, roaring, _“Open up!”_ He kicked several more times before Riku caught up with them, pushing past Axel and stabbing his sword deep between the two locked doors, the blade seeming to vanish into the wood, his whispered command of, _“Open!”_ springing them apart.

“Is that a fucking keyblade?” Axel demanded, startled.

“As a light-loving shit,” Riku replied tightly, “I can wield one. Now _get inside.”_

Axel staggered through the doors, Riku following and dragging them shut with a bang.

At long last, they could catch their breath. Much as when Axel had taken Roxas into his room in Castle Oblivion, the Heartless piled against the massive doors, scraping and scratching, thumping, Riku retreating several steps and waiting, body tense, to see if the doors would hold.

Axel lowered Roxas gently to the floor, then twisted towards Riku and again unhooked his second weapon. When the young man finally turned from the doors, wearily relieved that the threat had passed, he found himself facing Axel, expression hard, weapons ready to continue their earlier fight. “I was willing to overlook you being part of the Order of the Way to Dawn,” he stated, “but you’re a keyblade wielder; I can’t walk away from that.”

Riku glared incredulously, stance changing back to its ready state. “Really? We’re going to do this here? Now?”

“Now that I know you’re a keyblade wielder,” Axel started up again, before stammering to a halt as Roxas, who had climbed painstakingly to his feet, stood defiantly in front of him, face like thunder, drenched in his own blood.

“Axel,” he said, voice like ice, “if you touch Riku, if you fight him, I will _hate_ you for the rest of my life.”

Axel blinked rapidly, looking first stung, then frustrated. “Roxas, you don’t understand! I’m Organisation – he’s a _keyblade wielder._ We’re like… mortal enemies!”

“Riku is my brother’s boyfriend’s other,” Roxas answered, voice rising, trembling, “and if you hurt him, it’s the Riku on the other side that’s going to suffer. If you _touch_ him, I will hate you _forever._ I won’t even be able to look at Lea the same way. And if I get back across and Riku falls sick, I _will_ find a way to come back and make you _hurt_ for it.”

He held Axel’s gaze with a sort of controlled menace, exhausted beyond comprehension, every part of his body wracked with pain, a gory sight with his face smeared with blood. But never before in his life had he been as serious as he was right now, nor as coldly certain.

Maybe they were right about Roxas having been meant for this world, because whatever was in his gaze at that moment seemed to touch Axel, really make him _believe_ what Roxas was saying. His arms faltered, then lowered.

After a pause, Riku said, “We should move.” His voice echoed slightly in the castle’s vast foyer, now that the scrabbling claws of the Heartless had died away. Axel sent him a dangerous look, but, with Roxas’ warning in mind, he bit back whatever harsh words sprang to mind.

“Just try not to hurt him anymore,” he muttered waspishly.

Riku sighed. To Roxas, he offered awkwardly, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking with the dark corridor – and I really didn’t mean for you to get hurt earlier.”

Roxas shook his head faintly. “You’re helping. Let’s just… get me the hell out of here, so I can find a hospital. Sooner rather than later.”

Axel, evidently feeling threatened by Riku’s presence, stepped over, hooking his weapons back under his coat. Turning his back to Roxas, he bent his knees and said over his shoulder, “Hop on. I’ll carry you.”

Roxas eyed him uncertainly, but then, feeling just how beaten he was, nodded and, wrapped his arms over Axel’s shoulders, allowing the man to tuck a hand under him as he straightened. Riku watched from a few feet away, Axel darting him a swift, suspicious look, before glancing around. “So – where is everyone? I mean, this is a castle, right? Aren’t there meant to be, I don’t know – guards? Servants?”

Riku sighed exasperatedly. “You have no idea where we are, do you?”

“We’re in the only other damn place that has a magic mirror handy,” Axel tersely replied. “Want to make something of it?”

Riku muttered something like, _“Typical,”_ under his breath, Axel seething, Roxas giving a spike of his hair a gentle tug to keep him in line. Voice low, Riku explained, “This is the castle of the Beast. Like I said outside, he is…” He stopped, glancing nervously around, continuing in almost a whisper, “He’s _evil._ Twisted. Literally inhuman, after absorbing so much darkness. You want to know why the Heartless didn’t follow us in? Because _this guy devours them._ He consumes the darkness, to strengthen himself.”

Axel looked a little pale. “Shit. I thought there were just barriers on the doorways, like at Castle Oblivion.”

Riku shook his head, silver hair swaying. “And that’s why the _streets_ are empty, and why there’s no one about – this guy doesn’t have guards, or servants, or _anything,_ because he’s _terrifying._ And you,” he scowled, “brought Roxas _here.”_

“I’ll protect Roxas,” Axel asserted, although he was obviously unnerved by Riku’s information.

“You’ll probably die within these walls,” Riku coolly replied.

Roxas’ grip tightened on Axel’s shoulders. “No,” he said sharply, keeping his volume soft but his words firm. “I’m not losing him. Not either of you. If it looks like that – that Beast is going to get us, the priority is just to get out of the castle. We can figure something else out.”

“He says as he bleeds all over me,” Axel muttered.

“I’m not dead yet,” Roxas told him. “I’ll live. I’m not letting either of you die, though. I can’t…”

“You don’t want Lea or the other Riku to suffer, right?” Axel dully supposed. Roxas hesitated.

“It’s more than that. I’d care if you died, Axel.”

Axel turned his head, Roxas able to see one green eye gazing at him for a stretching moment. Then, he said, “All right. Nobody dies. Gotcha.”

“Well, in that case, we need to move _fast_ and _quietly,”_ Riku informed them. “This guy is psychopathic. Our best case scenario is getting in and out without him even knowing we were here.”

“It’s a big castle, right?” Axel shrugged a little, with a new burst of careless confidence. “I’m sure he won’t notice us, if we keep to the shadows.”

Riku’s lips thinned disapprovingly, but evidently the thought of standing there and arguing about it appealed to him a lot less than just taking Axel’s attitude in stride and hoping for the best. With ratcheting tension, he and Axel set off, the search for the mirror beginning.

“I hear,” Axel whispered, “that this guy keeps his treasures in the west wing – so let’s head thataway.”

Riku nodded. “Sounds good.” They ascended a sweeping staircase and turned left, moving deeper into the castle.

As they walked, Roxas shifted to get a better grip on Axel, the man hissing and flinching as he inadvertently squeezed his upper arm. Remembering that he’d been injured in the fight with Riku, Roxas felt a flash of regret. At that point, they hadn’t known Riku wanted to _help_ Roxas – Axel had got hurt thinking he was defending him. “…Is your arm okay?”

Axel gave a low huff that could have passed for a laugh. “Are you kidding? You’re asking me that? You’ve been stabbed twice and you’re covered in a million gashes from the Heartless, and you might be getting piggy-backed but you’re still going – me and my arm, we’re just fine.” After a couple more paces, he added quietly, turning his head to peer back a little, “Thanks, Roxas.”

 _“Sh.”_ Riku shushed them, Axel sticking his tongue out at the guy, but obligingly falling silent.

They made their way deeper into the castle, the flickering flames of the candle sconces giving the stark passageways a cold, grim feel. Roxas looked around carefully, keeping every sense alert for the twisted master that Riku said ruled the place, while trying to ignore the extreme light-headedness of having the reached the absolute end of his endurance. Thank God Axel was carrying him, or he was sure he’d have passed out halfway up the first staircase.

They moved persistently westward, Riku several paces ahead, stepping softly, keeping an eye out for danger. So far, though, they had got through the castle undetected and unscathed. The lack of staff or guards made it a far easier endeavour than it would otherwise have been; maybe Axel had been on to something when he pointed out that having one person to avoid in a castle wouldn’t be such a difficult task.

At length, they came upon a part of the castle that was even more dilapidated than the rest: a crumbling set of stairs that led to long hallway, which ended in a set of slender double doors. As they stood before the closed doors, Axel whispered, “This is about as far west as we can get, I think.”

“We didn’t miss any turn-offs,” Riku mused. He placed a hand upon the wood of one door and gave a gentle push, to no avail. “Locked.”

Axel stepped back, hitching Roxas up a little higher, the blond gripping him wearily, trying to be as easy a burden as possible. Riku brought forth his sword, and, closing his eyes, pushed it between the sealed doors as he had at the entrance. _“Open.”_ There was a click, and he removed the sword again, the door opening this time as he pressed against it.

Axel, watching with some disgruntlement, muttered under his breath, “Fuckin’ keyblades.” Roxas’ light squeeze of his shoulders was enough to make him shut up, and he followed after Riku as the young man slipped silently and carefully into the room beyond.

For a moment, they stood just inside the doorway and stared at their surroundings, Roxas eventually asking in a hushed tone, “Is this the west wing?” The place looked like a tornado had hit it. There were no lit sconces in here; rather, what light could struggle through from the moon outside lit the area as best as it could. The sheer volume of items crammed into the room made it difficult to see further than a few feet away, with tapestries and paintings on the walls torn to shreds, and splintered furniture strewn around. “Did the Heartless do this?” Roxas dubiously wondered.

Riku shook his head. “Heartless wouldn’t come here. This is the doing of the Beast.”

Roxas felt his apprehension climb higher, his hands again tightening on Axel, the redhead glancing back at him with equally serious eyes. How could a _person_ do this level of damage? The violence of the destruction was like a heavy shadow, and as the trio resumed moving, stepping cautiously through the chaos, it only grew more oppressive.

“Hey – Axel?” Riku softly asked, several careful minutes in.

“Yeah,” Axel replied heavily, “I feel it.” Riku nodded slightly, leaving Roxas wondering what it was they could ‘feel’. They both moved over towards the window, weaving through the mess to where the moonlight was gently filtering through the dust-caked glass panes.

There, in the silvery light, stood a white table, the only part of the room that looked like it was maintained. It was clean, almost polished, and mostly bare, sitting against the wall beneath a tattered portrait; its subject, when Roxas peered closely, seeming to be a woman. Only her brown eyes could be seen – everything else was torn beyond recognition. Axel squinted at the painting, then down at the table, whereupon there sat two items, and nothing more.

The first of the items had Riku looking fascinated. A bright, red rose hung suspended in a bell jar, held by nothing that Roxas could see, a faint shimmer radiating from it. With awe, Riku murmured, “It’s stunning.” His hands hovered over the jar, but didn’t touch, instead seeming to – to bask, as if it gave off heat. “It’s pure light,” he huskily said, sounding enthralled. Turning to Axel, he wondered, “Why in the world does that monster have something like this?”

“Who cares?” Axel tightly asked, his gaze already on the other item on the table. It was face-down, but obviously a hand mirror, albeit one of exquisite design. Riku glanced at it, and paused again.

“That, too,” he quietly exclaimed, reaching to touch it. “It’s an item of light. Is the Beast hoarding them?”

“Like I _said,”_ Axel snapped, batting his hand away and picking up the mirror, “who _cares?_ The Beast can do whatever the hell he likes with items of light – the fact of it is that we need this for Roxas.”

He lowered Roxas gently to his feet, but turned and wrapped an arm around his shoulders to keep him steady. Roxas was grateful for the assistance; he couldn’t, after all the running, actually stand on his stabbed leg anymore. In addition, his left shoulder throbbed excruciatingly, the arm difficult to lift. He was an absolute mess – there was no denying it.

Lifting the mirror, Axel frowned at the glass, his reflection mimicking the expression. “How do you work this thing?” he muttered, twisting it to look at the back, like maybe there was a switch to press.

“Don’t just _wave it around,”_ Riku growled softly. “Idiot. It’s an item of _light,_ you think you can just walk up to it and use it?” He turned his blindfolded face to Roxas. “Roxas needs to activate it. Give it to him.”

Axel glanced down at the blond, shrugged a little, then, after a pause, held the mirror out. There was a reluctance to his movements that spoke volumes: he still didn’t actually want Roxas to go. If Roxas hadn’t been bleeding all over the damn place, he might have even withheld it. But Roxas needed this mirror – he needed to get out. Needed to go home. When he took it from Axel, it was gingerly, a smear of red instantly spoiling its pristine surface.

Holding it, however, seemed to do nothing. Glancing at Riku, he whispered, “Now what?”

Riku made a helpless face, Axel sighing and shaking his head. “Look, you’ve gotta – you’ve gotta give it a command. That’s what Xaldin said.”

“How in the hell does someone from the Organisation know so much about an item of light?” Riku suspiciously asked.

“He’s been here before, okay? Confidential Organisation business, so don’t ask.” To Roxas, he repeated, almost impatiently, “So, give it a command. Tell it to show you something.”

“Anything?” Roxas uncertainly asked. Axel nodded and gestured for him to hurry it up, so he drew a breath, held the mirror in front of his face, and tentatively said, “Show me –” His mind was almost blank… until a name drifted up, one he hadn’t uttered in entirely too long. “Show me Lea.”

They recoiled as light burst sharply from the glass, tendrils of it crawling about haphazardly. As Roxas’ eyes adjusted, however, he hitched a breath, a flash of red catching his attention within the mirror’s radiating corona. He could – see Lea! His fingers tightened around the mirror, bringing it so close his nose was almost bumping the image. It had been only a matter of hours since he’d seen the man, but in that time so much had happened that Roxas had almost forgotten that Lea and Axel were, in fact, separate entities. He had been settling too easily into looking at Axel and _not_ thinking automatically of Lea – like the air of this place had been slowly sucking him in, creating a fog in his head.

Looking at Lea now, though, Roxas felt a spike of longing so intense it was almost painful. He was sitting somewhere – on his bed, it looked like. And he looked… _tired._ Exhausted. More than that, there was despair on his face. Holding his head in his hands, he looked like the world was ending. “Lea!” he cried, forgetting to be quiet, Riku shushing him insistently. But the redhead in the mirror didn’t respond.

“It’s not a freaking walkie-talkie!” Axel tersely admonished, looking more displeased by the second. “He can’t hear you, Roxas. All you can do is see _him.”_

“Well, then how am I supposed to get back?” Roxas demanded. “You’re the one who said a magic mirror could get me back. So, how?”

“Will you two _please –”_ Riku’s agitated attempt to get them to lower the volume trailed abruptly off. Sensing a change, not just from Riku’s rigid body language but in the air itself, which seemed to grow thicker, oilier, the moonlight unobstructed but dimmer than it had been a moment ago – Roxas looked over his shoulder, along with Axel, to see a looming, yellow-eyed shape behind them. If it was a Heartless, it was the biggest Roxas had ever seen, easily twice as tall as he was, and three times as broad.

With a gasp, he twisted, the light from the still-activated mirror splashing onto the figure, showing that it wasn’t a Heartless after all, but – a monster. _The Beast._ As the light from the mirror hit its crusted fur, it bent and roared at them, the sound vibrating throughout Roxas’ entire body. It was nothing but fury, and madness. It swung an arm the size of both Roxas’ thighs, Axel yanking him out of the way, the deadly, clawed hand striking a piece of discarded furniture and sending it flying, in several chunks, across the room. Axel rolled himself over Roxas, fumbling frantically for one of his weapons, the other cupping the blond’s head to his chest as the Beast raised both hands, clasped together, to slam down on them.

 _“Hey!”_ The Beast’s attention was sharply diverted over to Riku, who had lunged for the white table and snatched up the bell jar, now holding it aloft. At the sight of him with it above his head, as if he might at any given moment smash it to pieces, the Beast forgot all about Roxas and the mirror and, with a bone-rattling shriek, leapt after Riku.

 _“Get him out of here!”_ Riku yelled, scrambling through the mess to draw the Beast away.

Axel hissed, _“Shit,”_ and, grabbing Roxas’ wrist, tugged the mirror over to bark at it, “Show us Lea’s bathroom!” The mirror pulsed, the light tendrils crackling, and the image shifted, Lea melting from view, replaced instead by – a door? “We’re looking out of the mirror you came through,” Axel told him urgently. “It’ll still have some of the witch’s magic in it, so it’s still connected to this realm. _This_ is how you get home.” He turned his eyes to Roxas’, their faces a breath apart. “Just put your hand on the glass, Roxas.” Despite the direction, his grip on Roxas’ wrist tightened, the blond’s other hand trapped between them.

“I won’t forget you,” Roxas promised him, the pair of them wincing as the Beast’s howling roar once again shook the room. Wrapping the hand with the mirror around the back of Axel’s head, he tugged him in for a hard, final kiss. When they parted, he commanded, “Help Riku, okay? And look into that goddamn order of light, Axel – you’re more like Lea than you know.” Pressing their foreheads together, he added, “Don’t you fucking die in here.”

All the while, he had been working his other hand free, though it made his stabbed shoulder burn, and with a final brush of his lips against Axel’s, he planted his newly freed hand against the mirror’s surface.

There was one final burst of light, a rush of energy like a concentric ripple passing through the room – and then the mirror dropped, reflective once more. Roxas was gone, only a bloody handprint left on the glass in his wake.

Axel lay there for a moment, still, staring at the space where Roxas had been, the warmth of the boy still on his body, the smell of his blood lingering on the air. Then he heard a terrific _crunch_ as the Beast evidently made a swing at Riku, destroying something along the way, and, with a breath, rolled to his feet, unhooking his chakrams.

Help Riku?

Ugh. _Fine._

.o.O.o.

_Six Weeks Later_

“Come on, Sora. Don’t get cocky. Just because you have _one_ dream that’s true doesn’t make them all true. Or did you turn into an oracle when I wasn’t looking?” Roxas had his cell phone tucked between his head and his shoulder, sitting at the desk in his dorm room. Digging a spoon half-heartedly through a tub of yoghurt, he listened to his twin splutter indignantly on the other end.

 _“I’ve been dreaming it for weeks, though!”_ Sora told him, from Hollow Bastion. _“You, and some guy called Axel, and that – that dark place. And oh, man, all the blood…”_

“When is this supposed to happen, exactly?” Roxas idly asked, sucking his spoon clean, feet up next to his laptop, eyes on the window.

Sora was quiet for a moment. _“I think – it already happened.”_

“Oh? So you’re seeing the _past_ now?”

Roxas could hear the pout his teasing was causing on the other end of the line as Sora replied, _“Are you absolutely sure you’re not keeping anything from me?”_

“Sora, you’re my brother. Why would I keep something like that from you? I think your imagination is just a little overactive right now. Too much sugar, maybe.” He listened to Sora sigh. They both knew he knew the truth – he always had been the stronger of the two, in terms of clairvoyance – but Roxas wasn’t going to admit a damn thing. That would lead to questions he didn’t feel like answering – such as, what had caused it in the first place. Sora didn’t need to know that he and his new boyfriend had sort of almost indirectly killed him. He also didn’t need to know that Riku had a mirror image in that dark world – or that Roxas, in another lifetime, was supposed to have been his.

There was just… a lot that Sora didn’t need to know.

There came a knock on the door, Roxas shifting his chin to call, “Come in!” It swung open, and Lea entered, a smile spreading instantly across Roxas’ face at the sight of him. “Hi,” he said, Lea making a beeline for him and bending to press a kiss to his lips.

“Hi.”

 The soft affection in his eyes set Roxas’ heart fluttering. Into the phone, he said, “Hey, Sora, I have to go, okay? But, come on, relax. Stop worrying. Even if your dreams _were_ accurate, it doesn’t really matter _now,_ does it? If it was the past, then obviously I got through it just fine. Not that it actually happened. Stop watching scary movies late at night.”

 _“…Yeah, I guess.”_ Sora sounded glumly resigned to never really hearing the real story. _“I’ll text you later, then. Bye.”_

Roxas hung up, put his phone and yoghurt onto the desk, then reached up to Lea, tugging him back down for another long kiss. When they eventually parted, Lea asked, “Your brother still asking about the dreams?”

“Yeah,” Roxas sighed. “He doesn’t want to hear that it didn’t happen. I guess they’re pretty vivid.”

“He’ll probably figure it out,” Lea pointed out, “what with your new scars and all.”

They both looked over at Roxas’ calf, where a shining, hairless patch of skin now existed from Larxene stabbing him. He had a matching one on his shoulder. Both were only newly healed. They had each required stitches, and Roxas himself had needed a blood transfusion to get his platelet count back up. Luckily, the myriad scratches marring his face and body had closed without leaving marks, or Roxas would have _really_ had a hard time dissuading Sora.

“It’ll work out,” he assured Lea. “I’m sure I can bullshit my way through. And if not, what’s he going to do? Accuse his own brother of being a liar?” He shrugged, Lea shaking his head with a grin, leaning down for another kiss.

“That’s my evil twin,” he murmured. Roxas’ hands hooked behind his head, holding him close, the kiss languid to begin with, but growing hotter the longer that it lasted. Lea started massaging him through his shirt, shoulders first, then down to his chest. When Roxas lightly sucked his tongue, Lea groaned, breaking away to throatily suggest, “Bed?”

Roxas met his gaze, and slowly shook his head. _“Mirror.”_

Lea’s breaths quickened, pupils dilating. Lips curling into a smirk, he remarked, “You’ve had kind of a kink for that lately.” He cupped Roxas’ face, lapped at his lips. _“I approve.”_

“I thought you might.” Roxas twisted in the chair, holding on to Lea, who half lifted him away from it. Wrapping his legs around the man’s waist, Roxas was carried over to the floor-length mirror he had acquired upon returning home from the hospital. Along the way, he tugged off his shirt and tossed it to the floor, Lea depositing him on his feet when they reached the mirror, turning him around, the pair of them staring lustily into the glass as Lea, behind Roxas, started undressing.

Roxas held his eyes in the mirror, even when he tipped his head back against Lea’s shoulder to allow the man to plant kisses up and down his throat. As Lea’s hand delved into the front of his jeans, his green eyes seemed to shift, for just the barest flicker of a heartbeat, the grin on his face adopting a razor-like quality.

With Lea’s hands on him, and Axel’s gaze burning in the mirror, Roxas found heights of ecstasy he’d never known he needed.


End file.
